


The Losing Side

by colormetheworld



Category: Rizzoli & Isles
Genre: AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 10:21:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7680670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colormetheworld/pseuds/colormetheworld
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maura finally has everything she ever wanted. How long can she hold onto it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

Jane finally kisses her.

It is July 4th, and they are watching the fireworks from a viewing window of the Prudential Building. The finale starts, and Maura can feel Jane’s eyes on the side of her face as she watches the quick pop pop of exploding colors.

“You’re supposed to be watching the show,” Maura says quietly, smiling. “You finagled your way up here-”

“My cousin does security,” Jane says, but she doesn’t turn to look out the window.

“Right,” Maura says. “So shouldn’t you be taking the opportunity to watch the show from such a wonderful-?”

But Jane takes Maura’s hand and pulls her away from the windows, back to a shadowy part of the room and she kisses her. It’s soft and tentative, and it causes a rush of heat to pink Maura’s chest and neck. When she pulls away, Jane’s eyes are still closed, and Maura takes the opportunity to study her face up close: sharp nose, single dimple.

Maura smiles.

“That took you a while,” Maura says, leaning to press her lips to the corner of Jane’s mouth. She feels the corners turn up. “You’ve been wanting to kiss me for weeks.”

Jane chuckles. “Am I that obvious?”

“Yes,” Maura says. “About some things.”

“I didn’t want to rush you,” Jane pulls back so she can look into Maura’s face. “I like you a lot, Maura. Like. A lot, a lot.”

Maura’s heart flutters. “I like you too, Jane. Very much.”

“Yeah? Even though I’m a lowly junior from the wrong side of the tracks?”

There is almost too much truth underneath this statement for it to come out as a joke. Jane has started to pull away, but Maura takes her arms and wraps them around her waist. “You’re my lowly junior,” she says. “And I don’t care about any tracks.”

Jane laughs, loudly enough that other firework views turn to glance at them in a shady corner of the room. “For real?” she asks.

And Maura puts her hand on the back of Jane’s neck and pulls her in for another kiss.

“For real,” she says.

…

She would be the first one to admit that she never saw the lead up to her senior year going like this. Her family moved to Boston from Valencia, California, and she’d expected it to be more of the same.

She’d gotten lost downtown, in her second week in the city, trying to find her own way to her father’s office. Jane had been sitting outside of a coffee shop, head buried in some kind of manual. Maura had passed her four times, walking in inadvertent circles, until on her fourth lap, Jane had stood, pulling her earbuds out of her ears.

“Are you lost?” she’d asked, and when Maura had explained where she needed to go, Jane had whistled. “You’re really lost,” She’d amended. And then. “I can take you a bit of the way, and then point you in the right direction. If you want to stop going in circles.”

Her tease was more friendly than barbed, and so Maura accepted. “That would be very kind of you, if you don’t have anything else you have to do?”

“Something besides escorting a pretty girl through the city?” She’d grinned cheekily at this. “What else is there in the world?”

They’d introduced themselves then, and Maura had spent a very pleasant hour with Jane, making her way back uptown to her father’s office.

And though the Jane that had led her through the city was brash and magnetically confident, it was the nervous, slightly shy Jane that had pressed her number into Maura’s palm, and the relieved, elated Jane on the end of the other line three days later, that had ultimately won her over.

Now, two months later,  here they are. Fireworks over, pressed together in a quickly emptying room. She has had the best kiss of her life, and the girl in her arms is hers.

Maura presses her face into the bend of Jane’s neck, breathing deeply. “You’re _mine_ ,” she whispers.

Jane’s breath catches, but she doesn’t pull away.

“All yours,” she answers.

…….

…….

Over the next month and a half, they talk about everything. Maura is disconcerted by the differences between them. Jane’s family is loud and religious and nosy. She has two younger brothers who are both endlessly vexing and so essential that it seems hard to picture who she would be without them.

“I find it amazing,” Maura says. It is a bright, hot day in mid-August, and they are lying together on Maura’s bed in the cool air conditioning of her room.

Maura is running her fingers along the bare skin between Jane’s t-shirt and jeans, and Jane laughs, deliberately misunderstanding.

“Thank you,” she says cheekily. “It’s a simple ab workout that I do morning and night.”

Maura smiles, pinching her girlfriend’s hip. “I mean. I find us amazing. This relationship. You.” She blushes a little as Jane rolls to look at her.

“What do you mean?”

Maura shrugs. “I mean, sometimes it’s surreal to me that I have this. That I have you.”

Jane smiles, looking relieved. “The feeling is mutual,” she says, and Maura is momentarily diverted.

“What do you mean?” She cannot imagine that Jane, as charismatic and confident as she is, has never had a girlfriend before.  

Jane looks incredulous. “What do you mean what do I mean? I mean I can’t believe you’re with me.”

“Why?” Maura asks. She’d been sure she was the only one who’d been feeling inadequate.

“Why?” Jane’s eyes get bigger. “ _Why_? Maura. You are smart, and talented, drop dead gorgeous.” She lists these things off on her fingers, ignoring Maura’s sputtered protests. “You’re out of my league in so many different ways, especially when it comes to money.” She looks down at her hands, hesitating. “When I saw where your father worked that day…when you told me he ran that entire company. I almost didn’t give you my number.”

Maura looks at her, shocked. “What?”

Jane nods. “I thought there wasn’t any way you could be interested in me. You’re going to a private school this fall that costs more a year than my mom makes in a year. You get that, right Maura?”

She hadn’t thought about it. She hadn’t even considered that Jane might be thinking about it.

“Wait,” she says, parts of the summer drifting back to her. “That time I told you I had a reservation at L'Espalier, and you told me you were sick?”

Jane bites her lip. “In my defense,” she says, “the prices I saw when I googled that menu did make me feel awful.”

“Those reservations weren’t exactly easy to get, Jane!”

“Hey, Maura,” Jane holds up her hands defensively, “if I remember correctly, the night turned out pretty okay.” She leans in, her hands coming around Maura’s waist. “You brought me soup…we didn’t get around to eating it…”

It is so hard to stay mad at Jane Rizzoli. “Unfair,” she whines, but she lets the other girl wrap her in her arms and kiss her.

“You’re the single best thing that’s ever happened to me,” she says earnestly. “And even if it’s just this summer. I-”

But Maura pushes away, sitting up, her stomach dropping. “What do you mean only for this summer?”

Jane shrugs. “Who knows what might happen when school starts,” she says quietly.

Maura stares at her. “I don’t understand. You think this is just some sort of Summer fling?”

Jane shakes her head. “Not for me.”

“Then why would it be that way for me?” Maura counters angrily. “Don’t you think I would have said something, if that were the case?”

“I just know a lot of things can happen at school, Maura,” Jane says, sounding irritated. “You’re a senior and I’m just a Junior. I go to public school and you-”

“This again?” Maura rolls her eyes, trying to find a way to show that she doesn’t care. “Jane-”

“Maura, you’re going to meet so many new people. People who can go with you to places like L'Espalier without even batting an eye. People who-”

“Aren’t going to give me a second look,” Maura interrupts, pulling her knees to her chest.

“What?”

“You think I don’t know how this works?” she can’t help how bitter her voice sounds. “I’m going to a school where the kids have been together since kindergarten. I’m stepping into a social culture I don’t understand, among people who have been living inside of it forever. My mother expects that I will just fit in immediately, but I won’t.” she shakes her head. “I never do.”

Jane is silent, and Maura feels tears prickle the backs of her eyes. “I’d give every bit of money I have to go to school with you, Jane, just so I could know what it was like to walk the halls with my girlfriend, with a friend of any kind for that matter.”

When Jane still doesn’t answer, Maura looks up at her, trying to read in her expression where she’d gone wrong. “I’m sorry,” she says, because experience has taught her that when someone goes as stony silent as Jane has, it is proper to apologize. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to speak harshly. I’m just…I’ve never had many friends. I’ve definitely never had someone like you. And the thought that I might lose it-”

“Hey,” Jane puts her hand on Maura’s knee suddenly. “You’ll never lose me,” she says adamantly. “Never. Get it?”

Maura smiles despite herself. “You can’t be so certain.”

“Are you kidding?” Jane scoots closer. “You’re gonna get sick of me.” She bites her lip again, pushing some hair out of her face. “As for school…I’m sorry. I didn’t realize…Well, I didn’t realize a lot of things. And I didn’t know you were so nervous.”

Maura shrugs. “I’m more resigned, actually. I know how it will go.”

“How will it go?”

“I’ll be too European, or too smart, or too awkward,” Maura sighs, remembering her last prep school, the names that girls had called her. “Too boring.”

“I don’t think you’re boring,” Jane says. “You’ve never bored me.”

“That’s not true!” Maura laughs. “You nearly fell asleep standing up at the MFA two weeks ago.”

“That wasn’t you being boring,” Jane protests. “That was entirely the MFA’s fault. Snooze fest, the whole thing.”

“Well then I like boring things,” Maura amends. “And the other students are bound to see that very quickly. They always do.”

Jane seems to consider this. “I could help you,” she says after a moment.

“Hmm?”

“We could,” she blushes slightly, “I don’t know…practice or something?”

Maura raises her eyebrows. “Practice? Practice what?”

“Like…we could talk about what you’ll say. We could pretend I’m the snobby kids in your grade, and you can be you, and we can, like…” she trails off, blushing more deeply, clearly under the impression that her idea is a bad one.

But Maura grins. “You’d do that with me?”

“I’d do anything with you, Maura.” Jane says it casually, but she doesn’t look up.

“Anything?” Maura leans forward to take Jane’s face in her hands. They’ve been on the cusp of saying it all week. There were times that Maura felt Jane physically hold the words back.

“Yeah,” Jane says slowly. “You know that.”  She glances into Maura’s eyes and then away, “Do you want to start now?”

And Maura pulls Jane forward so that she can kiss her. She slips her hands up under Jane’s shirt and revels in the tiny gasp she gets in return.

“Tomorrow.”

……

……

_You’re going to have an amazing day._

Maura grins at the text that pings through thirty seconds after her alarm goes off. She unplugs her phone from its charger and rolls over.

**_You’re too sweet._ **

_Don’t let that get around. My rep will suffer._

Maura laughs, and there is another message before she has a change to respond to this last one.

 _Seriously, Maura, you’re the greatest. They’re going to see it_.

And then another.

I _love_ _you_.

Maura catches her breath. She stares at the three little words on her phone, dumbstruck, for a long time, and then she presses the little phone in the corner of the screen.

Jane picks up immediately, but doesn’t say anything.

“Say it,” Maura breathes. “If you mean it. Say it out loud.”

“I love you,” Jane says, without hesitation. “I love you, Maura.”

Maura closes her eyes against the tears of happiness in her eyes. She hugs her pillow close to her, wishing it was Jane.

“School is going to be great,” Jane says, though she sounds uncertain now. “You’re the smartest, most earnest person I know and…and I-”

“Oh!” Maura says, eyes snapping open. “I love you too, Jane. I love you!” It feels like relief to finally say it, and by the way Jane lets out a deep breath, she thinks that the brunette feels the same way.

“Can I see you? Soon?” Jane asks eagerly. “Now that I’ve said it, I kinda just want to kiss you.”

Maura flushes. She knows the feeling.

“After school,” she says, and somehow, the prospect of facing a new school and new classmates does not seem as daunting as before. “I’ll call you.”

“I love you,” Jane says, and the smile is evident in her voice.

Maura pushes back the covers. “I love you too.”


	2. Two

“ _Eat in the cafeteria. Just…pick an empty seat and sit down.”_

_“I don’t know…usually I go to the library and catch up on my reading. It’s probably better that on the first day I-“_

_“You’ll isolate you from the beginning, Mo. Go to the cafeteria…sit down at an empty table. Read, or look at your phone. Text me! You’ll look so gorgeous and unattainable, people will have to sit with you.”_

_“You think I’m gorgeous?”_

_“No, I know it. It’s an undeniable fact, Maura, like…the Sox losing when it really counts.”_

_“That’s…baseball.”_

_“Yes. Sit in the cafeteria at lunch. Promise.”_

_“I promise.”_

.

“Is anyone sitting with you?” Maura looks up from her book, startled. She’d made a promise to Jane, and she’d meant to honor it, but she’d never thought that anyone would actually try to sit with her. The speaker is the boy from her first period class, she remembers his name from the roll call. Barold Frost.

He’s holding a tray of cafeteria food, and smiling hopefully at her. She looks around for his friends, but he is alone.

“No,” Maura says, and then when he seems to hesitate, unsure, “I mean, yes! Sit, Please! If you’d like, of course.”

He does, and for a moment they just sit there, not speaking.

“So you’re a senior? You’re new here?” Barold says after a moment. “I saw you in my English class this morning.”

Maura nods, trying on a smile of her own. “Yes, I noticed you as well. Barold, right?”

The boy winces. “Frost,” he says. “Call me Frost.”

“Frost,” she says. “Yes. I’m a senior, and new.” It occurs to her that he might not _have_ any friends. “You as well?”

Frost nods. “I’m glad there’s two of us. That looks like a tough crowd to break into,” he says tossing his head in the direction of a group of vaguely familiar seniors who have just entered the cafeteria.

Maura bites her tongue for a moment, resisting the urge to talk about the teenage psychology that makes their new classmates loathe to accept them.

“Yes,” she agrees. “Tough. I guess you can’t really blame them, however. They’ve known each other much longer.”

Barry glances up and over her shoulder, and she sees his eyes widen a little. “Well, don’t look now,” he says softly. “Here they come to sniff out the new meat.”

And the sentence is barely out of his mouth before four more people have joined them at their table. They don’t ask to sit down, just arrange themselves across from Maura and Frost with the distinct air of ownership that comes with being a senior.

There are two girls, twins that Maura noticed earlier, and two boys, both with dark hair and purposely scruffy chins.

“Hello,” one girl says. She leans forward a little. “You two are our new seniors.”

Maura can practically hear Jane’s voice in her head.

_Listen to the_ _way_ _people say stuff, Maura. The way I say nice to meet you - like - happily, is different than the way I would say it if I didn’t actually want to meet you at all._

“Guilty,” Frost says, cheerful. “I’m Barry Frost. This is Maura.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Maura says. The twins barely glance at her, but both boys give her a good once over. She can feel herself blush a little.

“I’m Alia,” the girl says. “This is my sister Aneesa.” She points at the first boy, skinny and sharply handsome, his light eyes partly obscured by his hair. “This is Garrett, and this,” a bigger, more muscled boy, with short brown hair and brown, laughing eyes, “this is Ian.”

They nod.

Frost nods, and Aneesa looks at him, half of her mouth pulled up in a smile. Maura has seen this look on Jane, when she knows she’s going to win a game of chess in the park.

“So…Barold,” Aneesa begins. Her sister snickers.

“Call me Frost,” he repeats. “Everyone calls me Frost.”

“Frost,” Alia says with a glance at Aneesa that Maura thinks is conspiratorial. “Where are you from?”

“Chicago,” the boy says with an easy smile. “My mom got a transfer at her job last December. I went to Excel High last semester. And now I’m here!”

There is silence around the table. Something has happened, something bad, and Maura does what Jane has told her to do: she looks around the table at everyone else’s face.

If Frost realizes that the temperature at the table has dropped, he doesn’t let it show. He continues to smile good naturedly, reaching out for his burger after a moment and beginning to eat. “I’ll tell you this,” he says between bites, “the food here is much better than my old school.”

“Well,” it is Garrett who speaks up now, flipping his chestnut hair out of his eyes. “Here the food is all locally sourced and organic. Nothing out of date…nothing _donated._ ”

This is a dig, Maura has spent enough time with Jane to understand the tone, even if she’s not sure _how_ it’s meant to wound.

Frost gets it though. He puts his burger back down on his tray. His smile is gone. “Okay,” he says.

“Yeah,” Alia says. She points across the dining area to a group of kids sitting at a table together, laughing and chatting. “That’s _your_ table over there.”

“Jeeze Alia,” Ian says under his breath, but Frost stands with his tray, casting a quick glance at Maura before turning away.

“No sweat,” he says. “See you around, Maura.”

He has headed away before Maura has a chance to say anything, though she isn’t sure what she would have said anyway. He’d seemed like an ally though. She can’t imagine why they’d told him to leave.

Aneesa turns her unwavering stare to Maura.

“Where do _you_ live, Maura?” she asks. Her lip curls again.

 _Pay attention to the words they stress. Like…if they’re making fun of you, they’ll look at each other and smirk, you know_ , _like they all know something you don’t._

“I live in West Cambridge?” It comes out like a question. She wishes she could sound as easy and comfortable as Frost did a few moments ago. Should she have gone after him?

She sees Garrett and Ian exchange a look. It is not like the one Aneesa and Garrett exchanged when Frost said he’d gone to Excel.

“Which street?” Aneesa asks, leaning forward.

“Um, Berkeley?”

This catches Ian’s attention. “No way!” he says excitedly. “You’re the one who bought that big white house on the end of Berkeley?”

Maura nods. “My father did, yes.” And now they are all looking at her. Interested. Excited.

“Wait,” Garrett says after a moment. “Isles? Your father is the CEO of Harvard Pilgrim, isn’t he.”

This is not a question, and Maura nods. Part of her wonders how he knows this, but the other, louder part is elated that this confirmation makes the twins break out into wide smiles. She smiles back at them.

“Wow,” Aneesa says. “Harvard Pilgrim!  and to think Lia and I thought you were a charity case like Barold over there.”

_Charity case._

“So that town car that dropped you off today wasn’t a front?” Alia leans closer, her fork poised over her vegetables.

Maura shakes her head, still smiling, even if she has no idea what ‘a front’ means in this context. “My mother thought I should be dropped off, even though it’s under two miles away from my new-”

“Your mother was right,” Aneesa cuts her off. “Arrive in style on your first day. Attract the right kind of people.”

This is exactly what her mother had said this morning, when Maura had balked at the big black town car pulling up in front of her house.

The twins lean back, exchanging another look that Maura thinks might be positive. Garrett is looking at her too, with something more than the polite interest he’d shown before.

Aneesa gives a little nod to her sister, some covert conversation done with.

“So, Maura,” Alia says casually. “The bunch of us are going out after school. Garrett’s got us a Res at Menton. I’m sure he could fit another one in, right Garrett?”

Garrett smiles. He really is good looking. “Yes,” he says. “For you, Miss Isles, I’m sure we can make an exception.”

……

They come out, as a group into the weak September sun, Maura following in Aneesa and Alia’s wake, listening as they talk a mile a minute about which teachers they liked and didn’t like, about which classes were going to be a waste of time…about how as seniors, they should be allowed a full hour to go off campus and get lunch, rather than the measly forty five minutes currently allotted. She listens with half an ear, mostly basking in the fact that she’d come out of her last class alone, and found them all there by her locker, waiting for _her_.

When Ian had seen the confusion on her face, he’d smiled. “We’re all going to Menton,” he’d said lowly enough that the others didn’t hear. “Did you forget?”

“N-no,” Maura stuttered. “I just thought…I…” But then Alia and Garrett had turned to her, and she wasn’t able to bring herself to say that she’d thought they were simply being nice.

“That’s my car over there,” Garrett says, pointing to a black SUV idling by the curb. “Let’s hit some shops before dinner.”

Maura sees Jane a split second before the rest of her group does. She’s standing under one of the trees by the sidewalk, scanning the students nervously as they stream past her to their waiting cars. In her hands, she’s holding a huge bouquet of fall flowers.

It all goes through her mind very, very quickly. She is surprised, elated, touched,

She is fearful

Finally, she is annoyed.

She thinks of Aneesa’s sharp eyes on her face at lunch. The way she’d pointed Barry Frost to a new table. She’d called him a charity case.

She’d pointed him to a table of other charity cases.

Oh no.

Maura understands now, and the understanding trips her fear into annoyance. Annoyance that Jane would venture here, and with such an over the top sign of affection.

Her girlfriend turns towards her slightly, eyes still searching each face, and Maura lets herself lag a little, so she is hidden behind Ian’s frame. No one seems to notice.

“Shall we?” Garrett asks, gesturing again, and the twins smile and push each other playfully, each calling shotgun.

Maura follows, still hiding herself behind Ian.

She does not allow herself to breathe until the SUV pulls away from the curb.

……

……

_Hey, I came by your fancy school today. I wanted to be there when you got out, but I didn’t see you. How was it? I’m really sorry I missed you._

Maura looks down at her phone in her lap. She bites her lip. She doesn’t answer.

“Is everything to your liking miss?” A waiter materializes out of nowhere.

She nods.

Across the table, she sees Aneesa’s eyes on her.

_I’m done helping my Pop for the night. Do you want to get together?_

Maura puts her phone into her hand bag without pressing reply.

_Hey, I don’t want to sound like a stalker but…Are you okay? Did something happen?_

“What do you think, Maura?”

Maura looks up, blinking rapidly. “I’m sorry?” she says, because she has no idea what they’ve been talking about.

Alia looks a little sour and a little vindicated. “Got somewhere better to be?” she asks.

Maura shakes her head quickly. “No!” she says, too fast. “No, I just…” she lifts her phone weakly. “My…um…I just received a text. And it would be rude not to respond.”

“No sweat,” Ian cuts in with a smile. “’Lia is on her phone like 25/8. There’s times there could be an earthquake, and she’d never know.”

If this jab had come from anyone else, Alia would have responded with icy sarcasm. But she giggles at Ian, and reaches across the table to swat him playfully on the arm. “A girl needs to keep her connections,” she says, her voice higher than usual.

Ian smiles at her, though it doesn’t seem to reach her eyes.

“If you need to text, Maura, don’t be afraid to do so,” Ian says kindly, but Alia and Aneesa are looking at her through their matching ice eyes and even Maura cannot mistake this message.

_Everyone who matters is here._

She puts her phone face down on the table. “I’m fine,” she says. “It can wait, I’m sure.”

.

“You’re home late.”

Constance looks up from the article she’s reading in the living room as Maura comes in the front hall.

Maura puts her cell phone back into her pocket, text half written. “Yes,” she says. “You didn’t need to wait for me, Mother.”

Constance doesn’t answer this. She is looking at Maura with a little smile on her face. “It seems as though your first day here was more successful than others.”

Maura nods warily. “Yes,” she says. “A group of classmates invited me to spend the afternoon with them, and then dinner at Menton. The time got away from me, I suppose.”

Constance’s eyebrows rise, indicating her interest. “Menton!” she exclaims. “That’s a very nice restaurant. You had your father’s black card?”

“Yes, I was prepared. It was lovely,” Maura says, still wondering where the conversation is headed. “I had a very nice time.”

“Yes,” Constance says, smile widening, “well it seems that someone else had a very nice time with you as well. There is something for you on the kitchen counter,” she elaborates, turning her attention back to her periodical.

Heart pounding, Maura heads into the kitchen. There, in the center of the counter closest to the entrance, is Jane’s bouquet of flowers, stuck in the center with a small white envelope. Maura rushes over to it, breathing a little easier when she sees that the envelope is still sealed. She tears it open and opens the little card.

_I hope your first day of senior year was amazing, just like you. –J_

Maura can’t help her smile. She presses the card to her chest, too elated at that moment to feel any guilt. She pulls out her phone and is about to complete her text to Jane, when a voice makes her stop for the second time.

“An admirer then?” Constance has come up behind her, and Maura turns to see her there, small, knowing smile still on her face.

“Yes,” Maura says, praying she doesn’t need to elaborate. Praying the conversation ends quickly. Maura wants to talk to Jane so badly that her stomach hurts.

And to her relief, Constance only nods. “Good for you, Maura,” She says. “You know, I worried that all the moving your father and I subjected you to in your youth would have stunted your social growth. I’m very pleased to see that that doesn’t seem to be the case.”

This is the most complimentary her mother has been in a long time, and Maura’s distraction is momentarily diverted. “Thank you, Mother,” she says.

“Your new friends, they live in the area?”

“Two of them, yes,” Maura answers. “The others live in Boston proper, and commute to and from school.”

Constance considers this. “You’ll have to have them over for dinner. After all our boxes have been unpacked, of course.”

“Of course,” Maura echoes. She picks up the vase of flowers and turns, heading to her room.

“I am proud of you,” her mother calls, and Maura turns on the spot, the vase almost slipping from her hands.

Her mother nods curtly. “I’m proud of you,” she repeats. “You spent much of your time out of the house this summer, and I was concerned that you would continue to isolate yourself when the year started. I am proud of you for putting yourself out there today. I think your senior year will be very fruitful if it continues this way.”

Maura stares at her mother. “Thank you,” she says, unsure how else to respond.

Her mother turns away, and Maura hurries to her room.

The vase feels sweaty in her hands.

As soon as she gets to her room, she pulls out her phone, dialing the number she knows by heart.

It is 10:30 at night, but Jane picks up immediately.

“Maura.”

“Were you sleeping?”

“Of course I wasn’t sleeping. I was worried about you.”

“You…were worried about me?” Maura sits back against her pillow, smiling.

“Well, yeah. I got to thinking about what you said about all the other places. And then I didn’t hear from you all day. I started to worry. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” It’s all she can get out at the moment.

Jane presses. “It went okay?”

“It….went about as well as can be expected.” This is not technically untrue, although Maura never _would_ have expected.

Jane seems to take this negatively. “Shit,” she swears under her breath. “I’m sorry. I really am. If I could trip everyone who was mean to you, I totally would.”

Maura smiles, she doesn’t correct the misperception. “Trip?”

“Yeah,” Jane says, and it’s obvious she’s smiling too. “Think about how crappy your day is when you trip. They would stumble in front of everyone, fall down. Ruin their entire day.”

Maura laughs. “Thank you, Jane.”

“I love it when you laugh,” Jane says, softer now. “I want to see you so bad.”

Maura is brought back to reality with a jerk. _She_ is the reason that they didn’t see each other all day. She told Jane they would get to see each other and then she ignored the texts. She went out with her new friends instead.

The guilt that Maura was feeling is almost immediately eclipsed by elation.

_She has friends._

“Maura?” Jane has been speaking to her this whole time.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I…I was just thinking that I wanted to see you too. I _want_ to see you. I’m so sorry we didn’t get to today. Especially after this morning.”

There is a pause, and Maura can see Jane in her mind’s eye, biting her lip. “So…you don’t regret saying it?”

“Regret it?” Maura says, sitting up. “Never! Do you?”

“No!” Jane rushes to reassure. “No. I just thought, when you didn’t answer my messages.”

“The afternoon got so busy, and then…I…some of the kids at school…they…”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Jane says. “If you don’t want.”

Maura hesitates. She thinks of Aneesa and Alia and the way they’d reacted to Frost’s history. What would they think if they knew she’d spent the summer with Jane? What would they think if they knew that she had professed her love for this girl just this morning.

“I…only want to talk about you,” she says finally. “What happened to me today doesn’t matter.”

It is her first deliberate lie. For a moment, all she can hear is the furious pounding of her heart.

“I will see you tomorrow,” she says, so that the moment will pass more quickly. “I promise. Tell me about _your_ day, now.”

Jane sighs. She has not heard Maura’s heart. She has not figured out the lie. “Same old, same old,” she says. “Just another year older.”

Maura sits down on her bed, leaning back. “I got your flowers,” she says. “They’re beautiful.”

Jane chuckles. “Your mom definitely thought I was the delivery girl,” she says. “I brought them to the school when I came to see you.”

“I wish we hadn’t missed each other.” The truth. The rawest form of the truth.

“Well,” Jane says, and her voice has gotten softer. “Maybe we don’t have to wait until tomorrow.”

Maura sits up. “What?”

There is no answer for a moment, just some rustling. “Jane?”

There is a gentle tap at her window, and Maura whirls around to see her girlfriend, all smiles.

“JAne!” Maura runs to the window, pulling it up. “Jane! How did you?”

“I went to the park around the corner after dropping off the flowers. I…thought you’d call.”

“How did you get up here?” Maura looks over her shoulder. “Did you climb the trellis?”

“It’s just a weird looking ladder, Mo,” Jane says, laughing at her scandalized face. “I wanted to see you. Especially since you’ve had such a bad day.”

Maura reaches out and takes Jane’s hand. “Jay-”

“I just want to say, that you shouldn’t let those douche bags at school get you down. This year is your senior year. It’s going to be different than all the others. You’ll see.”

Maura lets Jane pull her closer, lets her lean through the window to kiss her. It makes her legs go weak.

“How do you know?” she says, when Jane pulls away. “How do you know?”

“You have me,” Jane kisses her again. “And you’re gonna have friends at your new school this year. I promise.”   
“Jane,” Maura tries again, but she’s met with her girlfriend’s lips.

“You’re gonna have it all, Maura, this year. You’ll see.”

And this time, Maura pulls Jane nearly through her window with the force of her hug. She doesn’t say anything about her new friends. She doesn’t say anything.

She lets the sentence roll around in her head. She lets it take root there.

“I love you,” Jane says, and Maura barely hears her. She is thinking over and over.

_This year, Maura._

_This year, you can have it all._


	3. Three

For the first time in her life, Maura discovers what it is to feel happy.

No, that’s not quite right.

Maura steps out of her town car and heads up the steps to the main part of her school. She is not just happy. She is fulfilled. Everything seems to be going exactly the way she wants.

Jane doesn’t show up at school again. Maura has made a promise to herself that she will carve out time to spend with her girlfriend and she does just that. And on the days when they don’t see each other, Jane calls at night and the two spend hours talking about anything and everything that Maura can think of.

Well, almost everything.

Maura does not tell Jane that she has become a permanent member of the most powerful group of seniors in her high school. She doesn’t tell Jane that people she doesn’t know say hi to her in the hallway, and that most days she sits between Aneesa and Alia Adams, listening to them talk about the latest article in Cosmopolitan magazine and trying to avoid the increasingly interested stare of Garrett Fairfield.

Jane has told her repeatedly not to overthink things, and Maura is starting to understand what that phrase means. With each passing day, Maura’s new classmates are less like frightening, unpredictable creatures, and more like complex math equations that are beginning to make themselves clear.

Aneesa likes to be admired, and a compliment slipped into the most banal of subjects will usually result in a smile and the forgiveness of whatever transgression Maura has inadvertantly stumbled upon.

Alia likes to be right. Although it sometimes pains Maura greatly to do so, she has found that there is a look she can give, that will make the other girl perk up immediately.

“That’s not true!” Alia will say immediately. “Something tells me that’s wrong.”

Maura has to press her fingernails to the insides of her palms to keep from saying that _she_ is the ‘something’ in Alia’s statement.

Ian and Garrett are boys, and Maura quickly learns to walk the line between what she wants, and what all boys want. Ian is Alia’s territory, there can be no mistaking or dispute about that, but Garrett shows an overt and somewhat aggressive interest in her. Maura learns to encourage without fulfilling.

She tells herself she does all of this for Jane.

She is almost able to believe it.

…

_Is your mom home?_

Maura’s phone buzzes, and she rolls over in bed to see a message from Jane waiting for her.  The weekend has dawned bright and sunny, full of promise.

 **_No._ ** Maura responds, smiling at the way Jane never bothers with greetings. **_Good morning, Jane._ **

_Good morning_ , _beautiful. I’m on my way. I have a surprise for you!_

Maura sits up, her fingers and toes tingling before she realizes that she’s nervous. She dials Jane’s number with trembling fingers, not sure what she’s going to say when her girlfriend picks up.

“Weekend!” Jane answers immediately, sounding ebullient. “I’ll be there in mere minutes. The board says the red line is only four minutes away.”

“Let me come to you!” Maura says quickly. “There’s more to do near your house anyway.” The day before, at lunch, Garrett had said that he might drop by her house that weekend if he had the time.

“Huh?” Jane pulls up short, confused. “You sure?”

“Yes,” Maura presses. “Honestly, I don’t mind. I need to get out anyway.”

There is a little pause. Maura has the distinct feeling that her girlfriend is not alone.

“Jane?”

“Yeah…yeah okay, that should work. You know that little park near my house?”

Maura raises her eyes to the heavens, fully relieved. “Yes,” she says. “Give me an hour?”

“Sure.” The excitement has trickled back into Jane’s voice. “Yeah, that’s great. I’ll see you in an hour.”

“An hour,” Maura confirms. “Bye, Jane.”

“I love you,” Jane says it quick, still bashful, and Maura’s heart does a silly little somersault.

“I love you too,” she answers.

……

……

The surprise is Barry Frost.

Maura enters the park an hour and ten minutes later, and immediately she spots Jane, sitting on a bench facing away from her, talking to a dark skinned boy.

Frost.

As she walks towards them on numb legs, Frost sees her over Jane’s shoulder and lifts his chin. Jane turns excitedly, and her face breaks open at the sight of Maura.

“You’re here!” she cries, standing and spreading her arms wide. “Maura, I have the best news,” she says, gesturing Frost forward. “This is Barry. Does he look familiar? He goes to your school!”

Maura stares at Frost, and he looks back at her coolly. She can’t for the life of her guess what he’s thinking. Is he remembering Thursday when Garrett tripped him in front of the boys bathroom, and sent his books flying? Alia and Aneesa had laughed, though all that Maura had been able to muster was a weak smile.

For what feels like an eternity, no one speaks, and then Barry reaches out his hand to her.

“Frost,” he says, with half a smile. “Call me Frost. I think I’ve seen you around the cafeteria.”

Maura nods, the ice cube in her gut lessening. She takes his hand and smiles.

“Yes,” she says. “It’s nice to officially meet you.”

Jane looks so proud of herself that she could burst. “Frost is sort of having a crappy time at school too, Maura,” she says, leaning forward a little, like she’s sharing a secret. “I told him about you, and I thought you guys could hang out and…you know…keep each other company.”

“Jane,” Maura clears her throat. She can’t think of anything to say besides. “You shouldn’t have.”

Frost snorts softly, but Jane only has eyes for Maura. She reaches out to take her hand. “Frost made some friends, didn’t you Frost.”

Maura sees Frost hesitate for a second. “Yeah,” he says. “Just some other scholarship kids.”

Is it her imagination, or does Frost over enunciate the word _scholarship._

“So…You can sit with Frost at lunch and during assemblies and stuff.”

“Assemblies are sorted alphabetically,” Maura says without thinking, and she sees Jane’s face fall a little.

“I just thought that it would be nice to know there was someone at school who had your back.” She squeezes Maura’s hand a little, and looks over her shoulder at Frost. “You’ve got my girl’s back, right Frost?”

Again with the miniscule hesitation. Maura is sure that this is the moment when she is exposed. She is already planning the explanation in her head.

_I didn’t want them to judge you. I didn’t want to let them ruin what we had._

_I didn’t want you to ruin what I had there…_

But Frost nods. He meets Maura’s eyes and then he looks away. “Yeah,” he says, and when he smiles at Jane, Maura could almost believe it is genuine. “Yeah, Jane. I’ve got her back.”

…….

…….

She finds Frost the next day, seeks him out before the class that they share. He glances her way when he sees her coming, but then looks back into his locker, ignoring her approach.

Maura takes a deep breath. “Thank you,” she says.

Frost half turns to look at her, mouth set in a straight line. “For what?” he asks after a moment. “For not telling Jane that you already knew me?”

“Well-”

“Or for not telling her that you’re one of the most popular kids here, and that you don’t have the time of day for charity case Frost.”

Maura colors. “That’s not-” she begins, but Frost shakes his head, cutting her off.

“Forget it,” he says angrily. “Anyway I didn’t do it for you. I did it for Jane.”

“What do you mean, you did it for Jane?”

“Do you know why this hasn’t blown up in your face yet?” Frost asks, like he hasn’t heard her. “Do you have any idea why you’re still getting away with this?”

Maura just stares at him.

Frost sighs. “Jane and I hung out all last winter,” he says, resigning himself to the conversation and turning to face her fully. “We hit it off right away. She came to my defense when a couple of guys were messing with me one day. She was the first friend I made here.” He shrugs his shoulders a little. “But Summer rolls around, and all of a sudden she starts ghosting me.”

He sighs again as Maura looks her confusion at the odd term. “I’d text her, wouldn’t hear back,” he clarifies. “I’d call and her brother would say she was out. I thought she was trying to put distance between us because of my scholarship. I thought she was jealous and hurt, you know?”

Maura nods.

“But then, last week, she texts me to meet in the park by her house. When I get there she’s so damn nervous she can’t even sit down. She’s pacing around and around the picnic table, telling me she’s sorry for being a shitty friend, she just didn’t know how to tell me…” he looks at Maura, searching for understanding, but she just stares back at him, still lost.

He sighs. “She came out. To me. Right there in the park. She says she’s in love with a girl, and she was afraid I wouldn’t understand. She says, ‘I’m gay. And this girl makes me want to stop running.’”

Maura cannot help the warmth that spreads throughout her body at these words. “Jane said that about me?” she asks.

Frost nods. “Jane said that about you. That’s why she introduced us this past weekend. She couldn’t take the thought you being miserable at school anymore.”

Maura doesn’t answer. She allows the guilt to overwhelm the elation she feels at hearing that Jane truly loves her.

“I’m not miserable,” she murmurs.

“No shit,” Frost says bitterly, though when she looks up at him, she can see that he’s struggling with something.

“What is it,” she asks. “Just tell me.”

“She’s a good person, Maura. And the way she talks about you...the Maura she tells me about sounds like a good person too. I don’t understand why you’re lying to her.”

In that moment, Maura can’t even begin to formulate a decent argument.

Frost rubs his hand over his hair. “Do you love her?” he asks.

Maura looks at him, wide eyed. “Of course I love her, how can you even-”

“Do you love her more than you love hanging out with Garrett Fairfield? Do you love her more than you love the Adams twins?”

“I-” Maura falters. “I don’t see why I can’t have both,” she says finally.

Frost stares incredulously at her. “Yes, you do,” he says simply. “Or you wouldn’t have lied to her.”

“Excuse me,” Maura fires up at once. “I haven’t lied to Jane...exactly.”

Frost scoffs. “So this past weekend in the park was you not lying? I’d hate to see what you’d say when you put your mind to deception.”

Maura flushes angrily. “I don’t really see how this is any of your business,” she says, surprised at the coldness in her voice.

Frost looks at her like she’s got an extra limb. “It’s my business because Jane is my friend,” he hisses. “She deserves so much more than you’re giving her, Maura.”

“You don’t know what I give her,” Maura spits back. “You don’t have any idea what kind of relationship we have.”

Frost blinks. “Well I know that she’s considering coming out to her family,” he says quietly. “She told me, a couple days ago. And you haven’t met her parents yet, Maura, but that’s a huge, huge deal.”

This brings Maura up short. “She-she told you that?”

“Yes,” Frost says. “They’re going to lose it.”

“Well can’t you try to talk her out of it? Can’t you...I don’t know...tell her-”

“That the girl she thinks she loves is really ashamed to say they’re together?” Frost suggests, and there is no mistaking his sarcasm. “Should I tell her that the first person she’s said I love you too is willing to throw their relationship away for a couple of high society friends?”

Maura shakes her head furiously. “That’s not true,” she argues. “That’s not true at all.”

“Prove it,” Frost says harshly. “Tell her about your friends.”

Maura fights the burn of tears. “It’s not that simple,” she says around the lump in her throat. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“And you don’t know what you’re doing.”

They stare at each other. Maura is thinking about her mother. She can’t help herself. She is thinking about last night, when she arrived home in time for dinner, and her mother had initiated the conversation about her school work. Maura talked, and Constance, miraculously, had listened. She is thinking about how it feels to step out of the car in the morning, and have Ian Faulkner turn and wave at her.

“No one has to get hurt,” she says, hating herself for the half whisper way this comes out. “No one has to get hurt.”

Frost shakes his head. He no longer looks angry, just tired and disappointed.

“For a genius,” he says, turning from her, “you really are a fool.”

…...

……

“So did you and Frost hang out today?”

It is Tuesday evening and they are in Maura’s bed, lazily intertwined. Constance is away for the week, and Jane has gotten her curfew lifted under the pretense of staying over at a friend’s house to work on a school project.

She climbed the trellis under the cover of darkness. Slipping through the window with a smile.

Maura feels her heart start to race. “Frost?” she asks, her voice a little higher than normal. It’s not the right thing to say. Jane pushes herself up on her elbows, eyebrows creasing.

“Yeah. Did you see him today? Did you guys eat lunch together? He said he would look for you.”

“I…didn’t see him,” Maura says.

This is a lie. She’d seen Frost on her way into the cafeteria with Ian and Aneesa. He’d glanced up at her from his own table of friends, and for a moment he’d looked hopeful, like their conversation the day before might have inspired a change of heart.

“I told him to look for you,” Jane says, sounding a little disappointed and a little angry.

“I stayed late in Chemistry before lunch,” Maura says. Another outright lie. “I might have just missed him.”

“Stayed late,” Jane says doubtfully.

“Y-yes?” Maura says, hoping that her girlfriend doesn’t hear that it comes out a question.

She is not so lucky. Jane sucks her teeth loudly.

“Mauraaaa,” she says, and as she drags the end of the name out, she pulls Maura down against her chest. “Don’t do this.”

Maura thinks her heart is going to break free of her ribcage. “Don’t do what?” she asks, managing to keep her voice steady.

“Don’t hide. Don’t isolate yourself.”

Maura pushes away. “What?”

Jane’s dark eyes look back at her. “You ate lunch in the Chem lab, didn’t you? To avoid the cafeteria?”

“I-”

“You’re so smart, and funny, and sexy, and just…” Jane runs her hand through her hair, looking flustered. “You just can’t…keep hiding. You’re so brilliant and-”

But Maura leans down and presses her lips to Jane’s, smiling at the way the brunette catches her breath and then reciprocates.

“What was that for?” she asks when they pull apart.

“You called me sexy,” Maura says. “No one’s ever called me sexy before.” She slides her hands up under Jane’s t-shirt, thrilling at the way Jane shudders under her hands.

“Maura,” Jane tries again, though with not nearly as much conviction as before. “Maur, you have to p-promise to try…okay? F-frost will help.” She stutters as Maura puts her lips against her neck. “Shit,” she hisses. “That feels really good.”

“Good,” Maura says, trailing kisses down to the edge of Jane’s V-neck. She feels the exact moment when her girlfriend gives up, when she stops trying to think and lets herself fall victim to the sensation of Maura’s hands, which tease the button of her jeans until she’s panting a little.

Maura feels Jane give up and give in, and then she herself breathes a deep sigh of relief, and stops thinking as well.

For the next two hours, she definitely does not overthink.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that cannon Maura can't lie. But in the show, the writers tried to give some stupid bullshit reason as to why she stopped being able to. I wanted to explore the idea that she wasn't always unable to lie, but that an event, or series of events, in her youth were the catalyst for a new, completely honest, Maura. 
> 
> That's the angle I'm playing here. I hope you'll see it through with me.


	4. Four

_This is as far as they get. Bare chested and panting against each other, Jane’s hands fisting the sheets of the bed, wild curls splayed against the pillow. Maura pulls away, hands reaching towards the fly of her jeans._

_And that’s as far as they get._

_Jane stops her, sitting up on her elbows looking windswept and pouty and more than a little bit sexy. “Stop,” she says, sounding breathless._

_Every time._

_But this time, Maura whines, sitting up too and tucking her hair behind her ears. “Jane.”_

_“Maura,” just as plaintive. “Don’t push me on this, please.”_

_“I just don’t understand why,” Maura says, and she leans down to press her forehead against Jane’s. “I know you want to.”_

_“You don’t!” Jane says, firing up at once._

_Maura laughs, and she positions herself between Jane’s legs, pressing in and up with her hips, reveling in the gasp of pleasure she gets in return._

_“I do,” she says, leaning down to press her lips to Jane’s collarbone. “God, I do, because everything you want to do to me, every sound you want to hear me make…I want that too.”_

_Jane moans, her fingers digging into Maura’s shoulder blades, holding her in place. Maura takes the chance again, reaching around to unbutton Jane’s jeans. She has almost succeeded in getting the fly all the way down, when Jane pushes her away again with a groan._

_“Mauraaa,”_

_“Jane!” Maura laughs, sitting up. “I don’t understand why you’re fighting this so. You want me to. Body language and chemicals don’t lie.”_

_Jane blinks, confused. “Chemicals?”_

_“Well,” Maura shrugs, “hormones.”_

_Jane looks doubtful. “Hormones,” she repeats. “They don’t have anything to do with this.”_

_“Yes!” Maura replies emphatically. “Yes they do! The amount of adrenaline and dopamine in your system alone are-”_

_“But that doesn’t have anything to do with us, Maura,” Jane interrupts. “It doesn’t have anything to do with what’s happening right now.” She puts her hand over Maura’s mouth as she tries to respond. “No. Listen…I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to tell me all about how my brain’s going through puberty and my hormones are all amped up and like…that means that I just want to kiss you and touch you all the time.” _

_She blushes as she says this, and Maura leans back, charmed. She takes Jane’s hand away from her mouth, kissing the palm. Jane watches, worrying her lip between her teeth._

_“No one makes me feel like you do, Maura,” Jane says softly. “You’re the person I want to call at the end of the day. You’re the person I want to call when Field Hockey practice sucks, or when it goes really well. I think about you every weekend that I work with my Pop and can’t see you.”_

_“How endearing,” Maura deadpans, trying at sarcasm. “Toilets make you think of me.”_

_“ Everything makes me think of you,” Jane says earnestly. She doesn’t even crack a grin. “I’ve kissed guys before. I even had like…a thing with this girl last year…” she blushes again. _

_Maura raises her eyebrows. “A thing?”_

_Jane shrugs. “Yeah. We played summer soccer together and I would sleep over at her house Saturdays after games.” Jane’s blush deepens. “We’d make out. Then in the morning we’d act like nothing ever happened. I’d always have to go to church the next morning. It made my stomach feel…”she trails off, distracted and then looks up._

_Maura must look jealous, because Jane chuckles, despite herself, and reaches out to smooth her brow affectionately. “What I’m saying,” she continues, “is that I know the difference between the feeling I get when I kiss anybody, and when I kiss you. Taking the next step with you is important to me. It means more than just, I don’t know, feeling good. ”_

_She ducks her head again, but the smile doesn’t disappear. “It’s not hormones, Maura,” she murmurs. “It’s a deliberate decision to love you.” She looks up now, fierce. “I made the decision,” she says. “I love you.”_

…..

Maura begins to relax.

The fall blurs into winter. Her driver turns the heat on in her car ten minutes before she gets in. Alia and Aneesa fight over two pairs of shearling boots, one beige and one feather grey.

Jane’s field hockey team goes into the playoffs, and Maura chances going to the game at the field in a park near Jamaica Plains. She meets Jane’s brothers, Tommy and Frankie, and by the end of the game she is jumping and shouting with the rest of the crowd, allowing Jane to hug her in exuberant triumph at the end of the game.

She becomes used to living a kind of double life, finds that she is almost built for it. It becomes second nature, a pleasure almost, analyzing and scheduling each activity day by day.

She attends her father’s medical research fundraiser at the Institute of Contemporary Art, inviting the twins, Ian, and Garrett to tag along with her. Her mother looks impressed at their names as she introduces them, and Garrett’s father donates the most money that evening, earning Maura a smile and a brisk shoulder pat from Richard Isles that makes her heart swell.

Her parents leave the next weekend, and the twins go out of town to New York City, so Maura spends all of that Saturday with Jane, wandering the strip mall near her house, and talking about her newly forming plan to enter the police academy.

They share a milkshake at a diner in Downtown Crossing, and then ride the subway out to Cambridge, Maura so lost in the feeling of her hand in Jane’s that she doesn’t notice anyone else around them.

“I love you,” she says into Jane’s shoulder. “God, I’m so in love with you.”

Jane’s hand squeezes hers.

“Stay the night with me,” Maura says. “My parents are gone until Monday afternoon. Come stay the night with me.”

She looks up when she gets no response, ready to argue, to see that Jane has already pulled out her cell phone to text her mother.

It is the first time that Jane walks through her front door.

……

……

_Jane’s mind might seem made up about their physical relationship, but there is no denying that it still pulls at both of them like a tide. It gets harder and harder to fight, especially when Maura is not particularly interested in resistance. Jane climbs her trellis one night in late October and joins Maura under the covers like usual. This time, however, Maura is waiting in just her underwear. Although Jane catches her breath when she realizes just how much of Maura’s skin is exposed, she doesn’t try to pull away._

_Maura takes this as a good sign. She presses closer, wrapping herself around Jane, slipping her hands up under her tank top._

_“No one has ever made me feel the way you do,” she says, pressing her lips to Jane’s neck. “I’m in love with you.” Her words, or the breath they ghost over her skin, make Jane whimper. Her hands, usually wrapped in the sheets, slide up the Maura’s ribcage. She sighs, heavy and full._

_“Maura.”_

_“I’m so in love with you,” Maura repeats. She doesn’t know when she started moving, rocking herself against Jane with quiet insistence. “Please.”_

_Jane turns her head so that they are face to face, her eyes wide in the darkness. “H-have you ever,” she hesitates. “Have you ever, you know…with…a girl before?”_

_Maura shakes her head, and Jane visibly relaxes. She allows Maura’s hand to trace the curve of her breast, press gently at each dip between her ribs. Their kisses are hard, searching and a little off base in the darkness, and when her fingers brush the top of Jane’s waistband, she waits for the red light. It doesn’t come._

_“Can I?” she asks, and when Jane nods, Maura gets goosebumps. She thinks at first that it will be like touching herself, but she discovers immediately that it is not. The angle is different, and the exhilaration is much greater._

_She shivers, and her hand jerks, and Jane hisses._

_“I’m sorry,” she says at once, moving away. “It’s just-”_

_“Switch,” Jane says, her voice deep and round. She puts her hands on Maura’s hips and moves her. “Shift yourself like…yeah,” she positions them so Maura can hook her leg over Jane’s and press herself inward. “Okay,” Jane says, pressing her head to the bend of Maura’s neck. “Do it again.”_

_Maura moans in response as she obeys. Slipping her fingers into warmth. Into…_

_“You’re really wet,” Maura whispers into Jane’s ear._

_Jane groans, seemingly beyond words._

_“Does it feel good?” Maura asks breathlessly, sliding her free hand into the sweaty hair at Jane’s temple. She presses against Jane a little harder, and Jane whimpers, a high, desperate, almost frightened sound._

_“Jane?”_

_“I-I don’t know,” she pants. “It…I don’t…Mauraaa…”_

_“Should I stop?”_

_“No!” Jane tightens her hold around Maura’s waist. “No…it just feels. Oh. My God. Ohmygodmaura…”_

_Jane is holding her a little too tight, and her fingers feel like they might be cramping, and at the last second, before Jane goes shuddery stiff and Maura loses herself in the hot white light of her own orgasm,  she bites down hard on Maura’s shoulder, making her yelp._

_But then the brunette goes liquid against Maura’s body, and the sigh that escapes her is sleepy and thick. Delicious._

_“‘mmlove you,” she murmurs into Maura’s neck. “Stay here…close”_

_Maura reaches to pull the covers closer around them, smiling._

_“I love you too.”_

……

……

Later, when she has had hours and days and even weeks to sit with the memory, she will realize that Aneesa and Alia were acting strangely from the get go.

She arrives at their house with most of her mind still on Jane. Their new level of intimacy seemed to open up a new side of her that Maura had never seen before. Jane wanted to spend more time together. She wanted to talk more. Her night with Maura appeared to have solidified something for her, signaled a point of no return. Jane had jumped in with both feet.

And while Maura was charmed and captivated by this new, completely dedicated Jane, It was creating new challenges in her efforts to keep her two lives separate.  

Jane didn’t mind reaching for Maura’s hand in public places. She didn’t hesitate to call Maura her girlfriend (“I tried it out on Frankie, and his eyes bugged out of his head, Mo, you should have seen it…”).

She wanted Maura to meet her parents.

“Hello…Earth to Maura?” Alia has been talking to her, and she hasn’t heard a word. She snaps out of her thoughts, and doesn’t even have to pretend to look embarrassed at her faux pas.

“I’m sorry. I was…thinking,” she says quickly. “That was rude of me.”

The twins trade a look and then turn as one and head towards the sitting room of their house. Aneesa and Alia live in a huge three story converted apartment building on Beacon Hill. Maura has been to their house just one other time, and the way they showed her around was meant to clearly communicate that they had money that even Maura could barely imagine.

“It’s okay,” Alia says, her smile slow and serpentine. “You’ve clearly got your mind on other things.”

Maura starts to protest, but Aneesa speaks over her, her smile as wide as her sister’s.

“No, no,” she says. “Don’t deny it. We know what’s got you so preoccupied.”

Maura feels her entire body go numb. At once she is trying to remember every face that she and Jane passed the previous weekend. Why had they been so brazen, holding hands in that park? What had she been thinking?

“You’ve got a crush on Garrett,” Alia says, with a sly look at her sister. “Don’t you?”

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Maura could laugh, she’s so relieved. “Oh,” she says. “I don’t know…” _this_ she can navigate. _This_ she can handle.

“Don’t deny it,” Alia says. “You’ve been walking around here with dreamy eyes, not listening to anyone.” She lowers her voice, eyes narrowing. “It’s _someone_ , Maura, so if it’s not him, then who is it?”

Aneesa clicks her tongue, “If it’s not Garrett, he’ll be just _devastated,_ that’s for sure.”

Maura does laugh this time, making sure to keep it light. “Surely not devastated,” she says. “He’s been kind to me, generous just like you two.”

Both twins take a moment to preen themselves in the glow of a compliment, and at that second the doorbell rings.

“Ah!” Aneesa’s whole face splits into a wide, mischievous grin. “The boys. Right on time.” She winks at Maura, who follows her to the door, looking curiously at Alia as they go.

“Don’t worry, Maura,” Alia says in the moment before the door opens. “We already told Garrett that you like him. You won’t have to be taboo and make the first move.”

…

From the moment that Ian and Garrett arrive, Garrett pays much more attention to Maura than he ever has before. The information he’s gotten from Alia has made him bold, and when they all sit down in the living room, he chooses the spot next to her on the couch, closer than usual.

Alia, as is always the case, sticks herself like glue to Ian, laughing loudly at his jokes and flipping her hair an inordinate number of times. But both she and her sister always keep at least half of their attention focused on Maura and Garrett. It’s as though they are studying her, waiting for something to happen.

Finally, about half an hour after the boys have arrived, Aneesa stands abruptly. “Maura, can I see you in the kitchen, for a moment?”

Maura smiles sheepishly at Garrett, and then stands to follow the other girl down the hall. As soon as she is through the swinging door of the kitchen, Aneesa turns on her.

“What are you doing out there?” she asks incredulously.

Maura shakes her head, confused. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, Garrett is putting out some serious feelers,” Aneesa says, exasperated, “and you’re acting like a Victorian era spinster.”

Maura blinks rapidly, trying to absorb both the shock and sting of this comment. “Oh,” is all she can come up with. “I…didn’t realize.”

Aneesa steps closer to her. “Is there anything you want to tell me, Maura?” she asks.

Maura has to focus hard on taking a breath that does not rattle. “No,” she says firmly. “I just didn’t realize.”

Aneesa smirks. “Well,” she says, stepping around Maura and heading back towards the living room. “You do now.”

Maura watches her go, brain racing. She has, so far, been successful in playing the middle ground with Garrett. Now, with the twins hawk eyes upon her, and Garrett himself thinking that she’s just waiting for him to make the first move, Maura knows that she will have to make a decision.

When she gets back to the living room, Aneesa has already retaken her seat, and all eyes turn to look at her as she enters.

Garrett pats her vacated spot. “Come join me,” he says, smiling.

Maura makes sure to give him one of her most brilliant smiles in return.

…

They are all still there, nearly an hour later, when the doorbell rings for the second time that afternoon. Maura has become more and more comfortable as the afternoon waned, and when the doorbell rings, she is leaned into Garrett Fairfield, his arm tossed casually around her shoulder.

It is not such a bad part to play, she decides. Garrett is not bad looking, and her mother will be absolutely thrilled to think that they are together. And if it might make evening dates and Saturday rendezvous with Jane a bit more complicated, it will also no longer be difficult to request time away when her parents are in town.

She can lie and tell them she’s going on a date with Garrett.

Or, Maura smiles at the thought, she doesn’t even have to lie. She will say she has a date, and they will _assume_ it is Garrett when it is actually Jane.

She is busy imagining all the time that will be freed up with this new ruse, when Aneesa’s sentence snaps her back to the present with a horrible jolt.

“Sorry, everyone, sorry, I totally forgot,” she says, and her mouth moves over the word _everyone,_ but she only has eyes for Maura. “The sink in the upstairs bathroom is leaking and I hired someone to come by and take a look at it. This was the only time he or his assistant could do it. They’re supposed to be very good.”

Maura is cold, and numb, and on fire simultaneously. She stares back into Aneesa’s eyes, and knows what’s going to happen before it does. She can see the future, and it is an apocalypse.

The end of the world.

“We don’t mind at all,” Garrett says in the voice he adopts when trying to be gracious. She’d been laughing at his jokes less than a minute ago, why does he now seem so utterly pretentious?

Aneesa disappears around the corner to open the door, and Maura tries to think of something to say that will allow her to avoid the impending disaster.

_Oh, I know I’ve been showing interest in Garrett for the last hour or so, but I’m actually in a committed relationship._

She hears muffled chatter in the hall and looks up towards the entryway. Alia is staring at her, and her expression is one of gleeful anticipation. This is a trap. They have trapped her.

And Maura has played right into their game.

She opens her mouth, determined to say something, but she is too late. Aneesa appears around the corner at that moment.

And behind her, in ripped jeans and a tank top that says “Rizzoli Plumbing, Inc.” is Jane.


	5. Five

It’s Jane, _her_ Jane, standing in the doorway next to Aneesa Adams, holding her toolbox in one hand and a loose over shirt in the other, looking bemused at something Aneesa has said to her.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” she asks politely, and her face is still turned from Maura. She hasn’t seen her yet.

Maura wonders if it’s possible to simply wish for something so hard that it happens. If it is, then she will become invisible.

Right. Now.

“You heard me,” Aneesa says. She steps into Jane’s space, and the smile on her face a seductive elasticity that catches Maura off guard. “I want to know if all services workers as fucking hot as you are. Or is it just my lucky day.” And Maura watches, with not a little bit of jealousy, as Aneesa lifts one of Jane’s curls off her shoulder, tugging it gently.

Jane’s cheeks go pink, but her face remains relatively passive.

Alia exhales loudly. “Christ, Aneesa. Keep it in your pants in front of guests, could you?”

 Jane turns at the voice, and she takes in the rest of them for the first time. Maura has to forcibly will herself not to grimace and close her eyes. She told Jane she would be out of town, and here she is. She implied that no one at school would give her the time of day, and here she is. She has said that Jane is the only one she wants to kiss, the only one she is in love with.

But here she is.

Okay. this is okay. She can fix this. She can come out of this in one piece. 

Somehow. 

“Hey! Maura!” Jane’s face lights up at the sight of her, and Maura smiles despite herself. As usual when Jane is in her presence, everyone else seems to fade for just a moment. 

“Hi,” she says. “It’s good to see you.” It sounds odd and strained even to her own ears, and she can’t really blame Jane for laughing.

“You too,” she says, her voice just this side of poking fun. “What are you doing here?”

“Maura,” Garrett sits up a bit, looking concerned. “You know this girl?”

This is her worst nightmare. She looks at Garrett, and then at Jane, whose expression is somewhere between confusion and expectation. She is waiting for Maura to make the explanation that will enlighten everyone. She sees no problem with having arrived to do plumbing work in the home of one of Maura's schoolmates.

Think, Maura wills herself. You can handle this. 

.

_Last night, her mother came to her room and sat on the edge of her bed. She’d smoothed out her skirt and looked around for a moment before finally looking Maura fully in the face._

_“We received a call from your school today,” she’d said brusquely. “Your senior advisor wants to know if you’d feel comfortable tutoring some of the younger children.”_

_Maura could only nod silently, mouth too dry to speak._

_“He says your test scores are unlike any he’s seen in his career,” her mother went on. “Your father and I want you to know we are very, very proud of you.”_

_“Thank you, mother,” Maura had said quietly, and Constance nodded and stood. She was almost to the door before she turned abruptly, clasping her hands in front of her._

_“Your father and I will be travelling to Rome this summer, for business,” she’d said._

_Maura nodded. “Yes, mother.”_

_“We both feel you’re old enough, that is, that you’ve matured enough to join us.” Constance had looked up again, at Maura’s shocked face._

_She had smiled. “We’d love for you to join us this summer.”_

_._

“She’s been to my house a few times,” Maura says. Her voice is louder than it needs to be. No one has tried to speak over her. She swallows her guilt. She tempers it with the memory of her mother’s pride. She makes her choice.

“With her father,” she clarifies. “You know how it is when you move into a new place. Everything needs upgrading.” She meets Jane’s eyes quickly, hoping that her expression will be sufficient to make her play along. _Just play along, and then everything will go back to normal._

 Jane is staring at her, face completely unreadable. The ripple of guilt this causes makes her next sentence come out less firmly than she would like. “They were very efficient,” she manages. “They did great work.” Next to Jane, Aneesa is watching Maura closely, and when they make eye contact, Aneesa winks and puts her hand on Jane’s bicep.

“So all the work you’ve been doing for Maura, is that what made these?”

In the armchair next to the couch, Alia leans forward, her eyebrows knitting together. “You let your _help_ call you by your first name, Maura?” she asks, and behind the mask of concern and condescension, Maura can see Alia’s malicious smirk, and her deadly intent.

Somehow, the twins _know_. They know, and they are out for blood.

Maura takes a breath. “I…It’s….”

“No,” Jane says suddenly. “I just forgot.”

Alia sits back, letting out a puff of air. “Rude,” she says snottily.

“I agree,” Garrett says, from beside her, and Maura starts. She’d forgotten he was there. “You should apologize,” he tells Jane, and the brunette’s eyes shift to him. Maura watches, holding her breath, as she seems to take him in for the first time. Jane assess Garrett, how close he’s sitting to her, his arm draped across her back, how casually he has come to her aide. Like he would for his girlfriend in any situation.

“Did you hear him?” Alia prompts, though she’s still looking at Maura and not at Jane. “You can’t just go around addressing your employers like they’re your best friends. Jesus.”

Jane blinks, still looking at Garrett’s hand on Maura’s shoulder. Then, with a great effort, she drags her eyes up to her girlfriend’s face.

“I’m sorry,” she says, though it sounds like the beginning of a threat rather than a sincere apology. She is waiting for Maura to speak up. To say something in her defense, or correct their assumptions.

“You’re sorry…” Garrett says, trailing off suggestively, waiting for Jane to finish the sentence.

And Maura was wrong. _This_ is her nightmare, watching Jane’s hand tighten around the shirt she’s holding and set her jaw so tightly that it looks as though it will break. She looks at Maura again before speaking.

Maura shakes her head quickly. Jane is the one to place her bets on. she will go to Jane later and she will understand. she  _will._

“I’m sorry…Miss Isles.”

And now they are all looking at Maura, waiting for her to either accept graciously, or to rub Jane’s nose in it like the lower class nothing she is.

“Mistakes happen,” she says quietly.

“Yes, ma’am,” Jane replies, and she looks away. Mercifully.

“Well, now that that’s taken care of,” Aneesa says, “you can follow me. I’ll show you where my room is.” She grins. “Feel free to call _me_ anything you want.”  

Maura has never seen this side of Aneesa before. She looks down at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap. Is she openly flirting with Jane because she knows there’s nothing Maura can do without revealing herself? Or does she really find Jane attractive? More importantly. Why is it okay? 

“Um, I’m here to fix the sink in the bathroom, Miss Adams,” Jane says lowly, turning to follow the other girl back into the hall.

“Right,” Aneesa says. “I’ll show you where that is too.”

As soon as they are out of sight, Alia snorts. “Oh, My God, what a bull dyke, right?”

Maura knows that Jane and Aneesa are not far enough away that they did not hear. She also knows that this is not a mistake. She hears Aneesa’s answering snort of laughter down the hall. Garrett laughs too, possibly a little uncomfortably.

“She seemed to like you, Maura,” Alia says, her smile more like a sneer. “You sure it was only your plumbing she took a look at?”

Maura is suddenly very aware of Garrett’s hand, still around her shoulder on the back of the couch. His fingers tightens a little on her upper arm. “C’mon Lia,” he says. “Don’t be crass.”

Alia hasn’t taken her eyes off of Maura. “I dunno,” she says slowly, melodically. “She seemed _really_ happy to see you.”

“M-my father tipped hers rather well, I believe,” she says. “She had to come on several occasions, but her work was always, ah, was always impeccable.”

Alia holds eye contact for a second longer than she needs to. Maura doesn’t break it.

_You can have everything you want this year, Maura._

“Better be,” she says finally slumping back. “So, who wants smoothies?” she asks. “Our cook just got in some great super foods.”

Maura and Garrett accept, while Ian declines, and not more than ten minutes later, a maid carrying a tray full of bright green smoothies appears. 

“Thank you,” Maura says, as she lifts hers from the tray. Garrett and the twins take theirs without saying anything.

Aneesa reappears at that moment, looking flushed and happy.

“You didn’t,” Garrett says, sounding disappointed. “Aneesa, tell me you didn’t come on to…the _plumber_.”

For a moment, Maura can see her pressed up against the wall in the hallway, Jane’s hands under her shirt. It’s so real that she almost cries out, but then Garrett clears his throat, and Maura blinks, and the moment passes.

Aneesa sighs. “She wasn’t having it,” she says gloomily. “Rebuffed me. Even after the promise of a tip. I’ll get her though. I’m irresistible.”

Maura can’t help herself. “I’m sorry,” she says, knowing it’s always good to come from a place of apology when it comes to the twins. “I’m sorry, but, I don’t think I understand what’s going on.”

The twins laugh, and Garrett manages a weak chuckle, though Ian stays quiet.

“Oh, Maura,” Alia says, smirking. “I think you understand more than you let on.”

Garret tugs a little at his collar. “Aneesa has a habit of…” he blushes, “ _playing_ with the help.”

“Playing?”

Ian makes a disgruntled noise. “That’s a pretty innocuous way of putting harassment,” he says, and though his voice has stayed light, his expression has slipped towards anger.

“Harassment?” Aneesa doesn’t even look mildly offended. “Ummmm no. I do not harass.”

“Your sexuality is your own business,” Ian answers curtly. “I’m just saying that when you-”

“Excuse _me_!” Alia fires up at once. “My sister is not… _gay!”_

Maura is looking at Aneesa when Alia makes this statement, and she thinks she sees a flicker of something like pain in her features, before she rearranges them back into her signature seer.

“Yeah,” she says. “It’s not illegal to play before you settle down and get right. Ask any woman who went to Wellesley.”

“You’re talking about _people_ ,” Ian says hotly. “Actual people.”

Aneesa shrugs nonchalantly. “People in my house,” she answers. “My house. My rules.”

“Aneesa,” Ian starts, but she cuts him off, throwing a look at her sister.

“It’s harmless!” she says. She stands, moving back towards the hall. “C’mon. I’ll show you.”

Alia jumps up at once, looking excited. Ian stands too, though he looks like he’s going to protest again.

Garret gets up and extends a hand to Maura to help her up.

“What are we doing?” Maura says, dreading the answer to this question. She would rather do anything else than go see Jane doing menial labor in the house of her new friends. “Can’t we stay here?”

Alia looks over her shoulder and grins. She positively beams.

“Come on, Maura!” she says cheerfully. “This, you’re gonna wanna see.”

…….

…….

Jane turns at the sound of their approaching footsteps. She’s put on a button up over her tank top, and in her messy bun and dirty converse sneakers, Maura thinks she’s one of the most attractive people she’s ever seen.

They will be okay after this.

They have to be.

Jane looks at Maura for a split second, before she turns and grabs a towel off the side of the sink, wiping her hands.

“I’m about to put the new fixtures in,” Jane says, and her voice is monotone, absolutely no inflection. “I shut the water off, took the old u-bend out. I need you to inspect them and then sign that you saw them and they looked good.”  She holds the clipboard out in the general direction of the twins, but neither make a move to take it from her. 

“No offense,” Alia says, and she tosses a wicked grin at Garrett and Maura, “but is that clipboard like, sanitary?”

Jane looks down at it, as though expecting to see it covered in dirt. “What?”

“She’s asking if your sexy grunge look is a style, or if it’s…Out of _necessity_ ,” Aneesa clarifies.

“C’mon, Alia,” Ian says, sounding rough. “Just sign the paper.”

Alia obeys him, but not before stepping around Jane and delicately detaching a couple squares of toilet paper to use as a buffer between her hand and the clip board.

Jane colors. She glances at Maura, almost plaintive, _almost_ like she wants to say something.

_Are you going to let them treat me like this?_

Maura looks to the twins.

“If we want to make our dinner plans, we should really let Jane work,” she says quietly.

Jane seems to take this as her cue. Or maybe she just can’t stand to look at them anymore. Either way, she turns and drops back to her knees, sliding back under the sink. “It shouldn’t be much longer,” her voice calls.

Ian moves to leave, and Garrett turns too, following his lead, but Alia doesn’t. She glances at her sister, who’s looking at Jane with her lip between her teeth. Then, eyes fixed on Maura, she walks to the sink. In one fluid motion, she dumps the remnants of her smoothie down the drain.

There is nothing Maura can do, not when Alia’s eyes are watching her every move. If she cries out a warning, then the twins will have their answer. And she has committed now. She has chosen her friends over her girlfriend, and if she backs out, she will lose everything.  

So Maura stands there and watches, as the thick liquid slides cleanly down the drain and through the pipe connected to nothing, and lands with a prolonged, wet splatter on Jane.

No one moves for several seconds. Maura is not sure she’s breathing at all. Alia and Aneesa stare with wide, giddy eyes as Jane slides out from under the sink and stands up slowly.

The bulk of the smoothie has landed on the chest of her t-shirt, though her face and hair are splattered here and there with green. As she stands straight, the liquid runs down her shirt to her jeans.

Silence.

Jane stares at the floor.

“I’ll get you a towel.” Ian finally breaks the silence, and as he turns and strides off, Alia’s face goes from barely concealed glee, to an open pout.  She turns away from Ian’s retreating back and looks at Jane expectantly.

“Well?” she says, as though she has found Jane sleeping on the job. “We’re not paying you to stand around.”

Aneesa nods. “I’ve got a change of clothes in my room. You saw where it was when we came up, right?” she reaches out and scrapes some of the smoothie off of Jane’s shoulder with her finger, and then puts it in her mouth. “Yum.”

Jane does not take her eyes off the floor. It’s clear that she’s wishing to disappear almost as hard as Maura had wished it earlier. Perhaps even harder. Maura wants to grant that wish more than anything in the world, and not only for Jane’s benefit.

“I’ll need to flush it out,” she says after a moment, and her voice is thick.

“What?” Alia asks.

“Since the drink went down while the water was shut off, I’ll need to flush it out to make sure the new U-bend fits snugly and the leak won’t happen again.”

“Whatever,” Alia says, rolling her eyes. “Can you fix it, or not?”

“It will be another thirty minutes.”

“You said that twenty minutes ago,” Garrett points out. He steps level with Maura and – to her absolute horror – puts his arm around her again. “As Maura said before, we have plans tonight,” he continues, and his tone implies everything, from the reason for Jane’s incorrect time estimate being entirely her fault, to how trustworthy a person she would be were they to leave her in the house alone.

Jane’s eyes flick up to Garrett and then back to her shoes.

“That was before the smoothie,” Jane says, and now her voice has just the edge of a growl. Maura feels the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

“You didn’t tell us not to pour anything down there,” Aneesa whines. “How were we supposed to know?”

Jane shifts slightly, but doesn’t answer. She looks up from the floor, finally, and fixes her eyes on a spot a couple feet above Aneesa’s head.

“You can’t charge us for any extra time,” Alia says. “Since you didn’t tell us.”

Jane blinks. “I want to make sure that the problem is fixed. 100% satisfaction is something that I strive for.” This is a canned line, and Jane does not even bother to make is sound genuine.

Ian comes back around the corner at that moment, carrying a white fluffy towel. He holds it out to Jane, and Maura thinks he looks sympathetic, maybe even apologetic.

“Here,” he says softly.

But Alia swipes it from Ian before Jane can even fully extend her hand. “Not those,” she snaps. “Those are the good towels. Neesie,” she turns to her twin, “go see if we have any towels that we used to let the dog sleep on. ”

Aneesa laughs, starting to turn away. Ian shakes his head. “ _C’mon_ Alia,” he says quietly.

“Forget it,” Jane says brusquely, and in one swift movement she pulls her t-shirt up over her head. The tank she’s wearing underneath is damp, but not as ruined.

Maura watches as she carefully folds her t-shirt and drops it into her tool box.

“Yes, this was the better decision,” Aneesa says, stepping forward again, But Ian takes her arm roughly.

“Enough,” he says.

Alia nods. She has clearly chosen Ian over her sister. “Yeah. You know she’d spread it all over town anyways. She’s probably not what you’d call discreet.”

“I dunno,” Aneesa says, shaking Ian’s hand off so she can turn to Maura. “I bet she’s pretty quiet. I bet she whimpers.” Aneesa’s eyes are shiny with elation. “Do you think _I_ could make her whimper, Maura?”

Maura has, up to this point, been misusing the word nightmare.

The look on Jane’s face at this moment. _This_ is her nightmare. 

Ian takes a step back towards the hall, he’s looking at Jane. Maura watches him digest and process her expression. “Let’s leave Jane to her work,” he says. “Let’s just let her finish in peace.

Alia turns away at his beckoning, looking satisfied, and Aneesa sighs loudly, seemingly disappointed that her fun is ending so soon. She turns and follows after the four of them, making soft whimpering noises as she goes.

Maura hears the wrench Jane has taken from her toolbox clatter to the floor.

Aneesa snickers.

“Well she’s not getting a tip from me, that’s for sure,” Alia says loudly as she turns the corner at the end of the hall. “Did you see her hair? We’ll probably have to delouse the carpets.”

Maura is unable this time to stop the heave in her stomach.

Garrett looks around at her. “I’m sure it’s not true,” he says, mistaking her noise for one of disgust. At least he has the decency to keep his voice low.

He takes her hand and looks into her face, smiling. “And don’t feel bad about your recommendation not being all you said it was. It’s so hard to tell with people like that.”

Maura is too stunned to even pull her hand away.

She has absolutely no response.

 


	6. Six

She doesn’t make it to the Rizzoli house until almost ten o’clock at night. The last four and a half hours have been agony. Dinner with the Adams twins, Garrett and Ian had dragged on and on, as if both sisters knew what Maura wanted to do and were trying to prevent it. 

Maura was too scared to even look at her cell phone all throughout dinner, in case they asked her what she was doing. When they’d finally all said good night, she’d walked as quickly to her car as possible without giving herself away, and pulled out her phone immediately upon shutting the door. 

No missed calls. 

No missed texts. 

She punched Jane’s number in and put the phone to her ear, nearly sobbing when it went straight to voicemail. 

“Jane? It’s me. Call me please? Please, I’m so sorry I didn’t…I don’t know what I was thinking, and I just…I want to hear your voice. Please call me. Please…I’m so…I…” 

She hadn’t been able to continue.

Now she parks in front of the darkened house and parks the car, looking. All of the lights seem to be off, but the window on the second floor, all the way to the left, has a faint glow. 

_Jane._ Maura swallows, and gets out, trying to think of something she can say that will make the events of the day less horrible. 

“We knew you’d show up.” A voice makes her jump and look up. Frankie is sitting on the top step of his house, watching her. 

Maura opens her mouth to greet him, but what comes out instead is, “We?” 

 Frankie nods. “Yeah. Me and Frost. We knew you’d show up eventually, when you got done trashing my sister with your fancy ass friends.” 

Maura feels her spirits fall. “Frost knows what happened?” 

Frankie scoffs, sounding just like Jane. “Yeah, he knows. Jane called him the second she got home and nearly screamed herself hoarse.” 

Maura stares at him in blank shock. “What?” 

Frankie nods. “Yeah. Like, ‘how could you not tell me? Were the two of you just laughing at me the whole time?’” 

“No!” Maura bursts out, horrified. “God. No. Frost tried to get me to talk to her. He was furious with me for not telling her.” 

“Yeah. He finally got that across,” Frankie says dismissively, pulling out his own cell phone and swiping at it. “What do you want, Maura?” 

“Is she here? C-can I talk to her?” 

Frankie manages a very withering glare. “Will she have to call you Miss Isles?” he asks bitingly. 

Maura winces.

“Just tell me one thing,” Frankie continues, not waiting for an answer. “How long were you cheating on my sister with some douchebag guy?” 

Maura’s head snaps up. “What?” 

“How long were you going behind my sister’s back with some fucking-”

“I wasn’t!” Maura cuts him off, feeling her stomach heave at the thought. “I wasn’t cheating on Jane.” 

Frankie scoffs. “Excuse me if I don’t believe anything you say. Excuse me if I trust my sister, who  _saw_ you with some guy all  _over_ you.” 

“He…I was just pretending,” Maura says, hearing how lame it sounds. “They expected…certain things from me, and I didn’t want them to think-”

“That you were with someone as lowly as my sister.” 

Maura shakes her head, fighting the burn of tears in her eyes. “No.”

“You know what I want to know?” Frankie asks, his voice raising high to mock her. “Do you want to know what I want to know, Maura?” 

Maura looks down at the sidewalk. “What?” she whispers. 

“How do you  _pretend_  to kiss someone?” 

“What?” she looks up at him, thrown. 

“Well,” Frankie’s eyes are wide with fake confusion. “You said you were only  _pretending_  to cheat on Jane with that douche canoe. So…how do you  _pretend_  to kiss?” 

Maura shakes her head. “We…hadn’t,” she says weakly. 

“You hadn’t kissed him?” 

“No.” 

Humiliation. This is what it feels like in its rawest form. 

“Would you have?”  The voice makes her head snap back up. She looks around, wildly. Jane has appeared on the front porch. Frost is right behind her. 

“Jane!”  Maura’s heart leaps in her chest. She had begun to believe that Jane had sent her brother out to reject her. “Jane!” She says again. She can’t help it. She is so relieved. 

Jane is dressed in a loose tank top and sweats. Her hair is up in a bun, and her eyes are red rimmed and puffy. She looks like this is the first time she’s stopped crying in hours. 

Maura realizes she’s held out her arms, as though she thought Jane might run into them. Frost is looking at her with such pity and disgust that she steps back a pace, hands falling to her sides. 

“Answer the question,” Jane says. Her voice is tires on gravel from crying. 

Maura opens her mouth, but realizes she doesn’t remember what the question is. 

Frankie makes an impatient noise. 

“Would you have kissed him?” Jane asks dully. “If he’d asked. If your pretending had gotten that far?” 

Maura crosses her arms, hugging herself. “No,” she says. “I wouldn’t have.” 

“You’re a liar,” Jane says softly. “You’re lying to me.” 

Maura steps back again, eyes widening. “I’m not!” she says shrilly. “I’m not, I swear.” 

Jane doesn’t scoff, or snort, or make that movement of her shoulders that Maura has come to expect from her. She stands very still, and she blinks at Maura like this is the first time she’s really seeing her. 

“You know,” she says in the same quiet voice. “I’m not going to say that I would have been okay with you keeping me a secret. I don’t know if I would have been. But you don’t know either, because you didn’t give me a chance.” 

There is no use in trying not to cry now. Maura sniffs, wipes her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. 

“I’ve never pretended to be something I wasn’t,” Jane says, as if she hasn’t heard. 

“I know.” 

“I  _told_  you I was just some trash from the bad part of the city. I told you that.” 

Frankie and Frost make similar sounds of annoyance. “Don’t call yourself trash, Jay,” Frost says hotly. 

“Yeah,” Frankie agrees. “She’s the trash, not you!” 

Maura wants to agree with them. She wants to do anything if it means that Jane will smile at her again. If it means she can be forgiven. 

“I don’t know why I didn’t say anything!” she bursts out. “I was scared!” 

She waits for Jane to ask what she was frightened of, but the other girl looks away, and it is Frost that asks quietly, “Of what?” 

“I was scared that…the only friends I’d ever made wouldn’t like the only girlfriend I’d ever had. I just…I was scared I would lose everything.” 

“You expect us to believe that your sob stories about always being lonely wherever you went are the truth?” Frankie says incredulously. 

Maura doesn’t take her eyes off Jane. “I don’t expect you to believe me, but that’s the truth. I’d never made any friends before I came to Boston. I didn’t…I thought that if we did our thing and I did stuff with them separately, no one would ever have to…get hurt.” 

But Jane looks up at her suddenly, and her eyes are blazing with such anger, that Maura gasps. 

“You’re still lying,” she says, and now her voice is rising. Now she seems to be coming back to herself. “You’re lying to me right now. It’s like you can’t stop.” 

Maura shakes her head, mute. 

“You told me it didn’t matter where I was from. Do you remember that? You told me it doesn’t matter.” Jane takes a couple steps closer to her. “But it does matter, doesn’t it.” 

Maura feels a lump in her throat. “I don’t want it to,” she manages. 

“But it does.” 

She can’t speak, so she nods, and tears run down her cheeks. “I’m sorry.” 

“How many times did you lie about being out of town?” 

“Just that one time,” she says immediately, and then, catching herself. “No, wait.” She swallows. “Twice.” 

Behind Jane, Frost shakes her head. He is disgusted with her. He is disgusted with what she has done. 

Jane steps closer, and her next question is barely audible. Maura has to lean a little closer. 

“Have you been with a girl before? Besides me?” 

Maura looks up into Jane’s face, mouth open, and she can tell that her expression gives the answer away before she has the chance to say anything, so she skips the confession completely. 

“I’m sorry,” she chokes. “Jane, no! Wait! Please!” 

But the brunette has turned away, is already heading back towards the porch, shoulders tight. 

“Please don’t go,” she calls after Jane’s retreating back. “Please don’t leave me.” 

Jane stops, but doesn’t turn around, and Maura seizes the chance, talking fast before Jane can regain her resolve. 

“Everything was new! I’d never had to make any of these decisions before. I thought that it wouldn’t matter what the kids at school thought because they’d never cared enough to think anything about me at all!” She watches Jane’s back for any sign of movement, any hint that she might turn around. That she might give in. 

“Then, I had this group of friends, who sought me out, and invited me places. And you don’t get it because you’ve always had friends, and you’ve always been invited…but it was like a drug. It felt so good to be a part of something that had always felt so… _inaccessible._

“And then there was you, and you were amazing. You are amazing. You’re smart and funny and kind. You loved me with everything. And you were talking about big things. You were talking about like…after high school, and coming out, and I didn’t want to let you go. I couldn’t. But I couldn’t bear another year of being invisible. Not after I’d been seen.” 

“So why didn’t you just say something?” Frankie asks the question. Jane has turned to stone. 

“I don’t know,” Maura says. This is the absolute truth. 

“Why did you let them treat my sister like dog shit?” 

“I…thought…she’d understand,” Maura answers, hearing how lame it is. “I thought if I explained it to her, she’d understand better than they would if I tried to explain to them.” 

“Liar,” Jane murmurs. She is crying again, Maura realizes. That’s why she doesn’t turn. 

Maura knots her hands in front of her. “And I was embarrassed,” she says after a beat. “I was embarrassed of her. When she showed up.”

No one speaks for a long time. A couple doors down, the sprinklers that water the lawn hiss on.

Jane sniffs, her arm going up to wipe at her nose. Frost is looking at her, trying to mask his concern and empathy with fury. 

He is only half successful. 

“Please forgive me,” she says to Jane’s back. “Please, Jane. I love you.” 

For a minute, she allows herself to imagine that Jane will turn. That she will scoop Maura up in her arms and hold her close, and cry and beg her to never,  _ever_ lie to her again. She will press her lips against Maura’s neck, the way she loves, and tell her how hurt she is. Maura will soothe that pain with kisses. With promises.  _Don’t do that to me again,_ she’ll breathe against Maura’s temple.  _Tell your friends about me_.  And Maura will say….

Maura will say…

“I don’t believe that you love me,” Jane says. And then, because she must understand that Maura hasn’t heard her, she turns around and looks her girlfriend (Oh, God. Her ex-girlfriend?) in the eyes. 

“I don’t believe that you love me,” she says again.  “And I don’t forgive you.” 

And with that, she climbs up the stairs of her porch, and disappears back inside. Frankie follows her without looking back at Maura, and although Frost lingers for a little longer, just looking at her, he doesn’t say anything. And after a moment, he too turns and heads inside. 

Maura stands outside on the sidewalk, watching the house, until the porch light flicks off. 

……

……

It is almost midnight when Maura enters her house. She doesn’t register the fact that her front door is unlocked, nor the light from the sitting room, until a voice calls out to her. 

“Maura, would you join me in here, please?” 

Maura freezes in the hallway, too stunned to reply. What could her mother possibly be doing awake at this time of night. She puts her fingers to the little dips below her eyes, knowing that there is no possible way she can make herself look like she hasn’t been crying, sobbing really, for almost an hour. 

“Maura,” her mother’s voice sounds again, a little more firmly. “Please do not make me turn this request into a demand.” 

Maura takes a breath, trying to settle her stomach and fix her face into something resembling a placid expression. 

“Hello mother,” She says as she enters the sitting room. “I didn’t realize you were still awake.” 

Constance looks mildly shocked at Maura’s appearance, and as Maura seats herself in an armchair, she can feel her mother’s eyes surveying her. 

“Goodness, Maura,” she says blandly. “You look awful. Are you alright?” 

Maura nods, swallowing several times, trying to get herself under control. “Yes,” she says. “I’m sorry. I’ve had a bit of a rough evening.” 

Constance nods. “As have I,” she answers. “I had a visit today from two of your school friends.” 

Suddenly, Maura is fully alert. “Oh?” she manages. 

“Yes,” Constance replies, looking at her carefully. “Twins. I believe they said that their surname was-”

“Adams,” Maura says, her stomach clenching unpleasantly. “What did they want?” 

“You interrupted me,” Constance says, and though her tone stays mild, her eyes flash dangerously.

“I-I’m sorry,” Maura says, looking down into her lap. 

Constance is quiet for a moment, but Maura doesn’t dare speak again, not when so much depends on information she does not possess. What could the Adams twins have wanted to speak to her mother about? How much more could they have destroyed her life?

“You know, Maura,” her mother says after a long moment, “I was once your age.” 

“Yes, Mother,” Maura answers automatically. 

“I was your age, and I was given to the same, how should we call them? Flights of fantasy that you are.” 

“Flights of fantasy?” Maura looks up, confused.

Her mother nods. “Yes. When I was not much older than you are, I had to make a decision about my future. At the time, I found it very hard.” 

Maura doesn’t know what to say. She continues to stare at her mother, mouth a little ajar. 

“I was very bright, though not as bright as you are, and upon finishing college, my mother sat me down, and she gave me the same speech that I am going to give you now, with a few modifications of course.” Constance glances up. “Close your mouth darling, you look like a guppy.” 

Maura closes her mouth, and because the moment calls for it, she says, “What did Grandmother tell you?” 

Constance nods her approval at the proper response. “She told me that when I was choosing how I wanted my future to go, I had to pay special attention to the shelf life of others, especially those who I wished to entangle myself with romantically.” 

Maura wonders if it is possible to have an allergic reaction to a tone of voice. “Shelf life, Mother?” 

“Yes,” Constance answers. “Shelf life. And potential. She told me that people who seem, in the moment, to be full of excitement and danger; the people who thrill us and make us feel as though we are vibrant, alive, and perpetually young? Those people often have the worst shelf life of all.” 

Constance looks to Maura to see if she is following, and Maura must look as confused as she feels, because her mother sighs heavily, and makes an impatient gesture. 

“Your father, for instance, has an amazing shelf life. He started from well named, if modest, beginnings,  _full_  of potential, and over the course of our marriage, his worth has done nothing but grow.” 

Maura’s stomach ache is not going away. It seems to be getting worse. “Worth?” she asks weakly.

“Not just financial,” Constance says, waving away Maura’s tone like smoke. “I’m not talking money, although that certainly is a part of it. I’m talking about social class, standing, and stature darling. I’m talking about all of the very particular things a person needs in order to survive in a world like ours.” 

Maura shakes her head, trying not to give in to the anger, like bile, in the back of her throat. “A world…like…” 

“It sounds harsh, I know,” Constance nods. “But it is the truth. And while the differences between you and your peers might not seem so big now, I can tell you from experience that it only grows.” 

Maura is going to cry again. She bites her lip, trying not to. She doesn’t want to give her mother the satisfaction. 

“I’m not sure what you’re saying, Mother,” she says finally. Her fingernails are digging into her palms hard enough to leave little crescent dents. 

Constance looks at her directly, and her expression hardens. “You know very well what I’m talking about,” she says quietly. “I am talking about you and that plumber’s daughter. The one you seem so keen on gambling your future over.” 

“I-” Maura begins, but Constance puts up her hand, and Maura cannot do anything but fall silent. 

“I want you to think very hard about your future. Alia and Aneesa were kind enough to come to me out of concern for you and your blossoming romance with the Fairfield boy. They didn’t tell him about your lapse in judgement, and I think you should consider yourself lucky to have made such good friends in such a short amount of time.” 

“Lucky!” Maura bursts out. 

Constance’s eyes widen just the tiniest bit. “Yes,” she says coldly. “Lucky. Whatever rebellion you needed to live out by carrying on with that girl should end now. Your father and I accept some of the blame, we left you alone too often, we weren’t there to guide you. But now we are.” 

Maura stares at her. “Mother,” she tries again. “I-”

“No,” her mother cuts her off. “No. I know what you are going to say and this is not a discussion. This is a choice that you must make. Now. Tonight.” Her mother waits for this to sink in before continuing. “Tomorrow is the benefit for global warming that the Fairfield’s are hosting downtown. If you are in attendance with Garrett, then I will assume that our conversation has had its desired effect, and that you have seen the points I made for what they are. The truth.” 

Constance stands, and Maura stands too, watching her mother head from the room. 

“And if I’m not there?” the question has torn itself from her throat involuntarily. She has to know what she chooses if she chooses Jane. 

Even if there is no Jane left to choose. 

“If you’re not there,” Constance says slowly. “I will understand it to mean that you do not care for your future, or for your name. I will understand it to mean that you decline your parents’ invitation to join them in Rome.” She looks down at Maura, and her face could be made of stone. 

“I will understand it to mean that you would rather be the wife of a plumber than the most brilliant, educated scientist of your generation. And I will consider it a great, and terrible shame.” 

And with that, Constance turns and heads from the room without so much as a good-night. 

And Maura is all by herself. Again. 

 

 


	7. Seven

She goes to the fundraiser with Garrett. He phones her the next morning to ask what color her dress is going to be so that he can match his tie, and she cannot bring herself to say that she’s not going. 

“I’ll pick you up around 6:30?” he says, and even over the phone she thinks she can hear the smug satisfaction in his voice. She wonders if the Adams twins have told him about Jane. 

“Yes,” she says. “I’ll be ready.” 

So they attend the fundraiser, and then the next night he takes her to a gathering his parents are having at their home in Jamaica Plain, and the weekend after her entire group attends a networking dinner for the seniors of Buckingham Brown & Nichols. 

By that time, Garrett is introducing her as his girlfriend. The fourth time he says it, she has trained herself not to flinch. 

They go out to dinner alone that night, and when he slides into her side of the booth, the hair on the back of Maura’s neck stands up. 

“This will make conversation a little bit more difficult,” she says, hoping her tone comes off as light. 

Garrett grins at her. “I was thinking we’d do a little less talking tonight,” he says, leaning closer.

Maura thinks to herself, right before their lips touch, that there are probably dozens of girls at school who would die to take her place at that moment. 

Maura thinks to herself, as his hand sneaks around her waist and pulls her closer,  _ I wonder what Jane is doing right now.  _

...

In her free time, between increasingly physical dates with Garrett, and increasingly tedious outings with the Adams twins, Maura writes apology letters. 

She scribbles notes in the margins of her text books. She writes long, heartfelt apologies during study hall. She composes endless texts. 

None of these every make it to the intended recipient. 

The one time she tries to talk to Frost, he shakes his head and doesn’t slow down. “I don’t have anything to say to you,” he says. “And I’m going to be late to class.” 

“I just want her to know that I’m sorry,” Maura says, breathless from trying to keep pace. “How is she doing? Do you think if I-”

“No!” Frost shoots her a glare that makes her stop walking. “You have done way more than enough Maura. Just let it go.” 

And he disappears into his classroom without another word. 

Maura is saved from crying alone in the hallway by Ian, who comes quietly up beside her and tells her that the second bell is almost about to ring. He doesn’t ask about her flushed cheeks or her quivering lip. She thanks the God of small miracles. 

  
  


  
Maura tries to grab at happiness where she can. 

Her mother seems to believe that her conversation has gotten through, and in return, she begins to pay more attention to her daughter. Constance and Richard ask for Maura’s opinion on everything from the renovation of the upstairs sitting room, to the choosing of day trips during their summer holiday in Rome. 

If she puts aside the niggling idea that her mother is only satisfying her end of the bargain, she can almost be content in the extra attention. She can allow herself to get caught up in the idea of three uninterrupted months with her mother and father, accompanying them to museums and historical sites, soaking in the culture of a new country. 

So it is with relatively high spirits that she takes the phone when her mother hands it to her, saying that she has a call. 

“Hello?”    
“Hello, Darling,” Garrett’s voice says.  

Maura just manages to suppress a shudder. “Garrett,” she says, and in her peripheral vision, she sees her mother smile. “How are you?” 

“I’m doing well. I’ve been thinking about you all morning. I thought you might call to thank me for dinner last night.” 

Maura frowns at the granite of the kitchen counter. “I went to be right after I got home,” she says quietly, wishing her mother wasn’t eavesdropping so blatantly. “Of course I didn’t mean to be rude. It was a lovely dinner.” 

This is not a lie. 

The dinner had been both delicious and aesthetically pleasing. Garrett had managed to buy out an entire room of their usual restaurant, and they’d been served five courses in such precise timing that it nearly took Maura’s breath away. 

The company, however, had not been lovely. Garrett was under the impression that these increasingly lavish dates entitled him to see more and more of Maura’s body. He also seemed to believe that someday soon, she would be so taken by his show of wealth, that she would agree to come back to his house for the night. 

So far, she’d managed to avoid both the groping and the intercourse, but she knew that couldn’t last forever. 

“And it’s the first time that BBN has ever been in the playoffs,” Garrett is saying on the other end of the line, and Maura snaps back into the present, trying to catch up. 

“I see,” she says vaguely, “That’s a great achievement.” 

“Certainly. BBN has always prided itself on having the highest test scores in the county, and it’s about time that our athletic department caught up.” 

“Yes,” Maura says, still unsure about the direction of the conversation. 

“Wonderful,” Garrett says, “So then, I’ll pick you up tonight around five? I know it seems a bit...below our usual standards, but I think that showing school spirit to one’s community is of value every now and then.” 

“Oh,” Maura says, finally understanding, “I agree. Yes, I’ll go with you, and don’t apologize. It sounds fine.” 

It does. In the stands of a sports event, most likely with the twins and Ian, there will be less of a chance that Garrett will attempt to slip his hand under her skirt, or to mouth at her neck in the parking lot. 

“Wonderful,” Garrett says again. “I will see you this evening.” 

Maura hangs up, and looks around to see that her mother is gazing at her with what could almost pass for affection. 

“You’re going out with Garrett again tonight?” she says. 

“Yes, we’re going to a sports event.” Maura drops her eyes, trying in vain to suppress the smile that her mother’s expression has elicited.

“That’s wonderful,” Constance says. “Garrett is clearly very fond of you, Maura. You’ll have to invite him out to visit us in Rome this Summer. I’m sure he would languish without your company.” 

This is sufficient to wipe the smile off of Maura’s face, but she keeps it plastered there, because she knows she must.    
“Yes, Mother,” she agrees, “I’ll certainly think about doing so.” 

Maura excuses herself from the room with an excuse that she forgets immediately. She smiles at nothing until she is back upstairs in her room with the door shut.    
And then, she starts to cry. 

……

…...

The game that she and Garrett attend turns out to be basketball. It is the first game of the playoffs, and twelfth seeded BBN is playing the second ranked Excel. When Maura sees the familiar colors of her ex-girlfriend’s school, she feels her stomach sink. 

“Oh good,” Aneesa says from the other side of Garrett, “there’s food carts set up. I am starving.” 

“You’re always starving,” Alia says, rolling her eyes. “If we were identical, I would put a muzzle on you so you didn’t get fat.” 

Garrett shakes his head and slides his arm around Maura’s waist. “I know it’s not what we’re used to,” he says into her ear, “but we’ll slum it for one night. What do you say?” 

Maura wants to say that the school’s giant stadium, with it’s several food stands, and booths selling school spirit paraphernalia is far from slumming it. She wants to say that she actually enjoys watching basketball, has enjoyed it ever since Jane took the time to teach her the rules. 

What she says is, “this is hardly slumming. The bleachers all have cushions.” 

Garrett chucks her gently under the chin with his free hand. “That’s my girl,” he says, following this with a kiss to the side of her head. “Always making the best out of every situation.” 

As they climb the bleachers to a row of empty seats, Maura scans the area where the opposing team’s fans are sitting. She does not see Jane or Barry among their numbers and she allows herself to breathe a sigh of relief. 

The first and second quarters of the game pass almost uneventfully. Garrett explains every play and every blow of the whistle, though he is misinformed about a number of calls. He tells her that the referee’s sign for ‘traveling’ means that the other team gets two shots, and when a full timeout is called, he stands, mistaking it for the end of the second quarter. 

By halftime, most of Maura’s immediate fear that she will see Jane has worn off, and she is merely irritated at Garrett’s pompous attitude, and bored of the Adams twins incessant bickering. 

And in the moment when she has fully let her guard down, the worst thing happens. 

Jane appears at the bottom of the bleachers, and starts to make her way up. 

 

Maura is tired of using the word nightmare. She is tired of having to redefine her rock bottom, the worst possible thing that could happen to her. 

Maura watches Jane, and yes, there’s Frost and two others she doesn’t recognize. They climb the bleachers, moving directly towards them. They are all talking, focused on each other, and none of them have noticed her yet. She hasn’t seen Jane in nearly two months, and the sight of her makes Maura’s hands tingle. 

She looks really good. She’s wearing jeans, and a grey down vest over a creme colored hoodie. As Maura watches, Frost says something that makes her smile. 

Maura bites her lip to keep from swooning. She has missed that grin, that dimple. 

Down on the court, something happens, and the crowd around her rises as one to cheer. She stands instinctively, feeling Garrett’s arm slide around her shoulder. “That’s our guys!” he yells, his other fist pumping in the air. 

When they are all seated again, it takes Maura a moment to locate where Jane and her group of friends have settled. They are on the opposite side, with the Excel fans, and although Jane is turned slightly away from Maura, Frost is now looking directly at her. From his expression, it is clear to Maura that he wants her to know that he’s seen her. 

He nods once and then turns his attention back to his friends. Maura feels the rejection like a shadow has been cast over her. She shivers. 

“You okay, babe?” Garrett asks, giving her shoulder a squeeze. 

“ I’m a little cold,” Maura says, because the sight of Jane having fun without her makes her feel as though she’s been plunged into ice water. She watches as Garrett leans away to look at her, and she thinks for a moment that he is going to offer her his coat. 

It’s something she always imagined happening to her, whenever she imagined having a boyfriend. He would drive her home in the small hours of the morning, both of them flushed, and still laughing from whatever adventure the day had held. He would walk her to the front door, and they would spend such a long time talking that she would catch a chill. 

And her handsome, funny, charming boyfriend would offer her his coat, just so he could keep talking to her. 

For a moment, Maura feels a flash of something like excitement. But it immediately turns to loathing when Garrett squints at her for a moment longer and then shrugs one shoulder. 

“You should have worn something heavier” he says gruffly, turning back to the game. “These stadiums can be pretty drafty.” 

And just like that, Maura is suddenly very, very hot. “It’s fine,” she says softly. 

But this is a lie, and it makes her flush down into her collar. 

….

When the halftime horn blows, Maura sees Jane and Frost stand out of the corner of her eye. They are descending the stairs, heading towards the row of food booths, and Maura makes her decision without really thinking about it. 

She has to talk to Jane. If she could get just five minutes alone with the other girl, she knows that everything would work itself out from there. 

“I’m going to go and get something to drink,” she says, standing up. To her horror, Garrett stands too, and then Ian and the twin beside him. 

“Yeah,” he says with an overdone stretch. “It’s halftime, let’s go see what’s down there.” 

“This is going to sound so lame,” Aneesa says with a smirk, standing to stretch “but I love cotton candy.” 

Alia rolls her eyes. “It does sound lame,” she says as they head down the narrow steps. 

Maura’s legs and feet are numb, but it’s not from the prolonged seat on the bleachers. She can see Jane and her group of friends up ahead at the popcorn stand, and she knows that to get to the cotton candy, they are going to have to pass right by them. 

“Will we lose our seats?” she asks Garrett, trying to think of some way to get out of her previous plan. 

“Nah,” Garrett says distractedly. “What do you want, Maura? It’s on me,” he flashes her a cheeky smile, and she fights not to wince. Garrett hadn’t had the chivalry to offer her his coat when she’d claimed to be chilly. How dashing of him to make up for it with two dollar popcorn. “I’m not very hungry,” she says quietly.    
It’s the truth. She is going to have to parade past Jane and Frost like she’s rubbing it in their faces that she is part of this group. The thought makes her sick to her stomach. 

“I hope the cotton candy stand has churros,” Aneesa is saying. 

“I hope your favorite jeans have an elastic waist,” Alia retorts. 

“Ladies,” Ian says mildly. 

Maura sees that he too has noticed Jane’s group, although his attention seems to be caught by a boy that Maura doesn’t recognize. He is tall and dark haired, and as Maura watches, he waves Jane’s money away and holds out his own dollar bills.  

Garrett has a preternatural sense for poor timing. He takes Maura’s hand as he follows Ian’s gaze, and so when he sees Jane and Frost, and decides to say something, the two of them could not look more like a couple. 

_ We are a couple _ , Maura reminds herself.  _ We have been on several dates. We are on a date right now.  _

“You know,” Garrett says, raising his voice, “Next year, when BBN plays Excel, I really think they should have two separate parking areas, and two separate vending sections, etcetera.” He smiles at Ian, who has turned to look at him coldly. “I’m just saying,” he continues, “I’d feel much safer...and much  _ cleaner _ .” 

The dark haired boy in Jane’s group turns angrily at the sound of Garrett’s voice, though for a moment he seems thrown by the sight of all of them there. 

“Make sure that they set up a special room for BBN fans, where they can cry after losing so badly,” he says. 

Garrett scoffs but makes no reply. There isn’t really one to make, seeing as how Excel Academy is winning the basketball game by double digits. 

Maura looks at Jane. 

Jane is looking at her feet, her expression hard to read. 

“Sanner,” Garrett says, “Talent at a sport is not everything. You of all people should know that.” 

The boy colors, but he steps forward, not dropping eye contact. 

“You know, Garrett, the best thing that ever happened to me was blowing out my knee and losing my scholarship.” He looks around at all of them with the same expression of disgust, even Maura, who wants to shout that he doesn’t know her at all. 

“But I see you’ve promoted Ian to second henchman in charge, so it’s all friends together.” 

Ian opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. 

“Hey, Steve, let’s just go, man,” Frost says lowly. He glances at Maura and then away. Next to him is a skinny girl with tan skin and brown hair, watching the scene with wide, confused eyes, and something finally clicks in Maura’s head. 

_ This is a double date. Jane is on a double date.  _

“Oh my God,” she says, and only when the twins and Ian have turned to look at her, does she realize that she’s spoken aloud. 

Garrett pulls Maura closer to his side, mistaking her tone again. “It’s alright, babe,” he says to her. The endearment makes Jane look up suddenly, right into Maura’s face. 

Garrett doesn’t notice. “You should listen to your new ‘ _ friend _ ,’ Stevie,” he says. “Why don’t you head out, quit while you’re ahead.” 

Frost takes the skinny girl’s hand and turns away. Steve gestures to Jane, who drops her eyes and turns too, and Maura is about to let out a relieved breath, when Aneesa nudges her sister. 

“What a dyke,” she says. 

Maura jerks her hand away from Garrett to turn and look at the twins, but Steve moves faster than any of them. 

He whirls and walks right up to Aneesa Adams, his face a mask of fury. “What the fuck did you just say?” 

Aneesa looks scared for half a second, before her face settles back into disinterested malice. “I’m not talking to you, Sanner,” she says with a chuckle. “I was addressing your ‘girlfriend.’” she lifts her chin to indicate Jane, her fingers curling around the air quotes. 

“What?” Steve pulls back. 

Alia nods, her mirth almost hidden underneath her serious expression. “It’s true, Steven. Sure, she cleans up okay. But you picked a lezzie for your little double date. I hate to break it to you.” 

Tears spring to Maura’s eyes as Jane takes a step back, away from all of them, her face pale. 

Steve shakes his head, looking disgusted. Frost, possibly thinking this disgust is directed at Jane, steps forward towards Ian. 

“Fuck you,” he yells, a general condemnation thrown at all of them. “She never did anything to you.” 

“She came on to my sister!” Alia says loudly, pointing. It is clear from her expression that she is enjoying everything about this situation. “She tried to spy on her changing when she came over to our house to fix a sink.” A couple of kids passing by turn to look at them. 

Jane takes another step backwards. “I didn’t,” she says, though her voice is barely audible. “I didn’t.” 

Her words seem to unfreeze Steve who reaches out and shoves Aneesa, hard enough to make her stagger.  “What gives you the fucking  _ right? _ ” he yells. He starts after Aneesa again, but Garrett steps between them. 

“Hey, calm down,” he says easily, still unbothered. “Don’t get upset because you couldn’t get a real girl to date you. It’s not Aneesa’s fault you’ve fallen far enough that you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel.” 

Steve punches Garrett without warning. He moves before any of them have a chance to really do more than pull in breath, yelling the whole time. “You’re scum. You’re a piece of shit,” he spits.” You’re just going to take it upon yourself to fucking  _ out _ somebody, man?!” 

It takes a moment for Maura to digest the full meaning of his words. Steve rounds on Ian, hands already up, ready for another fight. “You’re all just gonna stand there while he spews... _ filth _ !? Rumors and slander and fucking…” when it becomes clear that Ian is not going to lunge at him, or even say anything, Steve spins back to look at Jane. 

“Hey,” he says, moving towards her. He holds his hands out, palms up. “I don’t care what they say, Jane, okay?” He raises his voice. “And I don’t care if it’s true. They’re douchebags, and I think you’re great!” He steps closer to her. “No matter what.” 

He is doing the thing that Maura did not do. 

He is standing up for her.  

Maura watches Jane’s face change as she realizes the same thing. How the understanding turns her fear into righteous anger. Garrett pulls himself to his feet, rubbing his jaw. 

Jane squares her shoulders, glaring at him.  

“You’re trash,” he says to Steve through gritted teeth. “Just like your fucking trash friends.” 

Steve is shaking his hand slowly, as though the punch hurt him a little bit too. “If we’re trash, Fairfield, I don’t even want to know what you are.” 

The skinny girl who seems to be Frost’s date nods at this, her light eyes shining with anger. She moves to stand next to Jane, a clear show of solidarity. “You can put fancy clothes on an asshole but it still smells like shit,” she says. It’s the first thing she’s said in Maura’s presence, and she is surprised at the deep rasp from such a petite looking girl. 

For a moment, Maura imagines herself on the other side of this fight. If Jane had taken her back, and she was standing there, in her wrap dress and ballet flats, would it be better? Or would it be just as horrible?

Would she feel as out of place physically on that side as she feels emotionally on this one? 

“Garrett,” she says, understanding that his name from her mouth is a tiny bomb of betrayal for Jane. “Garrett, I don’t want us to get in trouble.”

Steve appraises her for a moment. Does he know about her? How many times have he and Jane gone out? 

“We’re not the ones who would get in trouble, sugar,” Garrett says, brushing some imaginary dirt from his knees. “He hit me first.” 

“You threatened my date,” Steve says, “and I’ll sure as hell tell anyone who wants to know.” 

“And you think they’ll  _ care? _ ” Garrett says with a forced laugh. “You think anyone’s going to believe a bunch of Excel kids over us?” He puts his arm around Maura. “Take your carpet munching girlfriend back to her stable, Sanner. She’s giving me a migraine.” 

Jane steps forward, eyes flashing. Her expression is no longer fearful. 

She doesn’t look at Maura at all. 

“Insult me all you want, Fairfield,  _ sir _ ,” she growls. “But I pull better ass than you on any fucking day of the week.” 

A couple kids who have stopped to observe the brewing fight ‘ooh,’ behind their hands. 

Steve laughs, looking genuinely impressed. 

A girl with long dark hair looks over her shoulder as she passes by. “I’d pick the chick,” she calls, with a wink at Jane. 

Garrett goes crimson. Being punched in the face by Steve seems to be a minor insult in comparison to this. He starts towards Jane with a swear, and Maura realizes that Jane isn’t going to back down. She watches his advance with a feral, anticipatory stare. 

Maura reaches out to wrap both her hands around Garrett’s arm. To hold him back. “Don’t!” she says, hating how scared her voice sounds. 

And then several things happen very, very quickly. 

Garrett turns and shoves Maura away from him, the built up adrenaline for the impending fight making him push harder than he meant to. 

Maura stumbles away from him, and falls, and she feels the palms of her hands scrape the rough carpet of the stadium floor. 

And then Garrett is lying on the ground too, several feet away from her, and as Maura’s comprehension catches up with her senses, she realizes that it is Jane who has put him there. She has punched him, harder than Steve had, and after one glance in Maura’s direction, Jane turns and delivers a kick to Garrett’s ribs that makes the Adams twins shriek. 

And then Frost and Steve are rushing towards them, shouting for Jane to stop, and two strong hands are lifting her up off the ground, and she is being shuttled away from the chaos by Ian.  

“Wait,” she says, craning her neck so she can still see as Steve grabs Jane around the waist and hauls her back from Garrett, who’s lying in the fetal position on the ground. 

Ian doesn’t heed her cry. He continues to pull her away, towards the parking lot, his arm around her shoulders in a protective sort of gesture. 

“Wait!” she says again. “Jane!” 

“She’s fine,” Ian says. “Steve and Barry will take care of her, Maura. She’s fine. Come  _ on! _ ” 

And she stops fighting him, because he is right, and because she couldn’t get away from him if she wanted to, and because he is doing the one other thing she wants besides to be next to Jane.

He is getting her away from Garrett.

……

Ian’s car is like Garrett’s, large and fully upgraded, with a leather interior and a sound system to rival that of a movie theatres. 

They wind along the single lane road behind the stadium, following a line of cars all leaving the game, and Maura leans back in her seat, taking a couple of deep breaths. 

“You okay?” Ian asks, not taking his eyes from the gleam of tail lights in front of him. 

Maura nods automatically, but for some reason, she has trouble getting the word out of her mouth. 

“I’ll be fine,” she says, clearing her throat. “It was just…” but she breaks off here, not wanting to disclose more than she has to. Although Ian does not seem to have the same belief system as Garrett and the twins, she cannot be too careful. 

Ian glances at her. “You know, Steve Sanner used to be my best friend,” he says. 

Maura turns to gape at him. They pull up to a stop light and Ian grins without looking at her. “Your mouth is going to hit the dashboard soon,” he says. 

Maura shuts her mouth quickly. “The boy that punched Garrett?” she asks. 

“Yeah. He used to be Garrett’s friend too, actually.” 

“Oh,” Maura says, and then unable to help herself, “What happened?” 

Ian blows out a breath, swinging the car into an outside lane. “Steve blew his knee out playing football in his sophomore year,” he says. “Fucking tragedy. He was an amazing athlete.”

Maura frowns, trying to put this information in line with the ending of a relationship. 

Ian glances at her again, and smiles, like he can tell what she’s thinking. “He lied to us,” he says quickly. “He was on full scholarship, but he never told us. Even more than that, he went as far as to break into a house on the hill and host a party. Had us all believing he was this super wealthy, jetsetter type. But his dad worked as a janitor at the public school, and his mom was a nurse.” 

He relays the information without intonation. 

Maura stares at him. “He lied?” 

“I think he felt that he had to,” Ian says. He casts a sidelong look in her direction. “Garrett and the twins,” he swallows, “all of us” he amends. “We were pretty exclusive. They still are.”

Maura looks down into her lap. “So you stopped talking to him? When he had to go to a different school?” 

Ian is silent for long enough that Maura is sure that she’s crossed a line with her questioning. 

“It’s one of my biggest regrets,” he says finally. “It’s the thing I wish I could undo the most in the whole entire world.” 

They turn onto Maura’s street in silence, and when they get to her house, Ian puts the car in park, but doesn’t turn it off. 

“Look, Maura,” he begins, but Maura shakes her head. 

“When did you know?” she asks softly. 

Ian smiles at the steering wheel. “I thought I knew when she came to the Adams’ house. But I knew for sure tonight. You didn’t see her face when Garrett put his hands on you. She was ready to defend herself, sure. But when he pushed you…when you  _ fell? _ ” Ian shakes his head. “Game over.”  

Maura blinks back tears. “It’s me who lied though,” she says thickly. “I lied to her. About everything.” 

Ian nods, looking sympathetic. “Yeah. I gathered.” 

And sitting in front of her house, Maura finds herself recounting the whole story, even the part where she and Jane spent the night together, and the conversation she’d had with her mother after coming back from her break up. 

Ian listens to the entire story without interrupting, and when she’s done, he takes her hand gently. 

“I was going to tell you that I thought she’d forgive you…but now,” he looks at her sheepishly. “I’m honestly not sure.” 

She smiles, despite herself. His candor makes her feel surprisingly light. Or maybe it is just the relief of finally telling someone the truth. 

“I don’t think she will,” she agrees. “I really, really hurt her.” 

Ian nods. “I spent almost a full year trying to get Steve to accept my apology,” he says, shaking his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes. “It took me until last summer to understand that he’d already accepted my apology,  _ and  _ forgiven me. He just…couldn’t be my friend anymore.” 

Something occurs to Maura, and she looks up at him curiously. “You still hang out with Garrett though,” she says. “And Aneesa and Alia. You’re still their friend, even though you feel horrible for how they treated Steve?” 

Ian nods, his face grave. “Yeah.” He lets out a long sigh. “Habit,” he says, answering her unasked question. “And fear. Some days, I get up and I look in the mirror and I tell myself that today is the day I tell Garrett what an arrogant prick he is. I’m sure I can do it, all the way in to school, and while I’m at my locker…” Ian’s shoulders sag. “Then I think about the influence his father has, and the amount of money my parents shell out to make sure I’ve got the best opportunities. I think about how miserable he could make my life, and how easy knowing him could make my future…and I can’t do it.” 

He has dropped her hand, and now sits looking away from her, ashamed. 

Maura puts her hand on his shoulder. This is the closest she’s felt to anyone besides Jane since she moved to Boston. 

“Thank you,” she says quietly, “for driving me home.” 

He looks at her out of the corner of his eye, and smiles sadly. “No problem, Maura,” he replies. “Anytime.” 

 


	8. Chapter 8

Frost approaches Maura at her locker two weeks before the end of school. He taps her on the shoulder, not gently, and she is startled when she turns around and sees it’s him.

Usually when they pass each other in the hallway, or in the cafeteria, they pretend that the other one does not exist.

“Barry?”

“What did you do?” He asks her. His usually kind face, well, if not kind to her then at least, neutral, is lined with such an intense expression of dislike that for a moment she is speechless. She wracks her brain, trying to find a reason that he might be upset, besides the obvious...That was months ago. This anger is too raw and too new. Something has happened.

“I...I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she stutters.

“Like hell,” he says. “Just tell me the truth. She already knows it was you, anyway.”

 _She_.

Jane.

“Did something happen? Is Jane alright?” Her curiosity and trepidation at seeing Frost mad at her doubles, and mixes with genuine fear at the prospect of something harming Jane.

“What do you mean is she alright? No, she’s not alright!”

“What happened? You have to tell me what happened!” She says when he just stares at her. Scenarios are racing through her head. Jane injured, Jane in the hospital.

Jane in the ground.

“What _happened_ , Barry?” she doesn’t care if she’s yelling, doesn’t care if every single person in the hallway hears her.

Something changes in Frost’s face. “You really...don’t know,” he says, and it’s not a question, but a statement.

He is awed at her ignorance.

“No, I don’t,” she says. “Please. Tell me.”

She is going to cry. She is going to cry right there, in the hallway, and she’s not even sure she cares. Every emotion that she’s been carrying for the last three months, is threatening to burst to the surface right now.

“Is she okay? Can I-can I see her? Wherever she is?”

Frost blinks, like he’s coming up for air after a long time underwater. “Her folks kicked her out,” he says finally.

Maura stares at him. Somehow this news is worse than hearing that Jane is in the hospital.

This is worse.

“Her parents threw her out of the house?” she asks, hoping against hope that the colloquialism ‘kicked out’ somehow means something different now.

But Frost nods. “Yeah. They got an anonymous letter.”

“An anonymous-”

“It had pictures,” he continues. “Of you and Jane. Before you broke up? Kissing. In front of your house. The letter just said…” Frost hesitates. “The letter said, _it’s broad daylight. Do you know where your daughter is?”_

The Adams twins. It has to be the Adams.

Maura stares at him, but her mind races through all of the ways they could have gotten those pictures. She wonders how long they held onto that note, waiting for Maura to crash and burn, possibly thinking they’d never have to use them.

And then she had played her part so meticulously, so perfectly that they hadn’t had a choice.

“It must have been the twins,” she says, feeling no desire to lie, or to protect her so called ‘friends’ in the slightest.

“Well, yeah,” Frost says. “I know. But I thought maybe you were in on it.”

“I wouldn’t-”

“Just because of the pictures,” he says. For all of his anger and protectiveness earlier, now he just seems...sad.

“I know I have no right to ask this,” Maura says after a moment. “And you don’t have to tell me, I’d never want you to betray your friendship…” She takes a breath. “But is she…”

“She took it hard,” Barry says, “I guess there was a lot of screaming, and, I don’t know, her Dad lost his shit. Talked about exorcisms.”

Maura shudders.

“He gave her twenty minutes to get her stuff and told her to get out. He said she wasn’t welcome under his roof if she was going to embrace that kind of ‘perversion.’”

Maura shakes her head. “God,” she whispers. “Where is she now?”

“She’s crashing with me and my mom for now. But I know that she thinks it’s a huge imposition.” Frost shifts uncomfortably. “My mom got laid off last month. She found a new job, but it doesn’t pay as much, and so making ends meet is tough. We’ll get back on our feet, we always do, but I might just go back to Excel next year.”

Frost looks around them. “This place is poison.”  

“Barry. I don’t-” Maura doesn’t know what to say. “Poor Jane,” she finishes. It sounds so lame, even to her.

“Yeah,” he says, shrugging. “Frankie comes around every day after school. They talk, whatever, But no one else from her family has been by. Her ma didn’t even call mine to check up on her.”

Maura can remember, towards the end of their relationship, when they’d talked about Jane coming out to her family. She’d get a look of determination on her face, and it almost entirely masked the fear.

“If you’re there,” she’d said. “If you hold my hand, then I can do it.”

Sometimes Maura thought she said this more to reassure herself.

Maura was always quick to reassure her, to tell her she could do it on her own time. How selfish she had been. What had Jane thought about her, telling her it didn’t matter if she stayed in the closet?

“She’s lucky to have you,” Maura says.

Frost has been watching her face. “You really love her, don’t you? Still.” he says.

“Yes,” she says, because lying doesn’t seem to be an option anymore. “I love her so much.”

“Why did you do this to her?” He asks like he genuinely wants to know. Like now that the dust has permanently settled and they are alone, she will be able to give him a real answer.

She wishes she had an answer for him that wasn’t so shallow.

“Because it felt suddenly like I could have everything,” she says quietly. “It felt like I could be popular, and have my parents love me, and have Jane love me, and…They could all be these beautiful, separate little bubbles that didn’t ever have to come in contact with each other.”

Frost nods. He seems satisfied, if not happy, with the truth.

She feels satisfied, not happy, for giving it to him.

“You know, Steve told me about what happened to him when he went to BB&N.”

Maura nods. “Ian told me.”

They look at each other, and Maura thinks that they are both wondering how much of the story they have been told is the truth.

“You’re not like Ian, Maura,” Frost says. “And you’re definitely not like Garrett, or the Adams twins, but you could be…if you try.” He puts his hands into his pockets. “But I remember the first day we met. Your first reaction to me was a kind one. A friendly one.”

He smiles at her. “You’re like Jane, really. I just wish you’d been with her long enough to let her prove it to you.”

And without waiting for her to respond, he turns and walks away, just as the first bell rings.

 

At lunch, Maura doesn’t feel like eating, so she doesn’t go to the cafeteria.

Her phone lights up with simultaneous texts from Aneesa and Alia. They are both in their last classes and want to know if she’s gotten their usual table. She doesn’t answer either of them.

Ten minutes go by, and she stays in the Chem lab, as though this belated fulfillment of Jane’s assumption will bring the brunette back to her.

It brings only a text from Garrett.

_Hey baby, where are you? Fancy a quickie in the janitor’s closet?_

She is disgusted because she knows that he is being serious. They have had intercourse in his car, and once, standing in the bathroom stall in the locker room after his wrestling practice. Both had been uncomfortable and unsatisfactory, and she had refused, point blank, to get into an actual bed with him.

That space was where Jane’s memory lived. She would not overwrite it.

She takes a breath and texts him back.

_I don’t fancy anything with you at all._

Her relief is so total, that she has to sit on one of the high stools.

He texts her back four question marks, which she does not even deign to answer. If he cannot ask her a coherent question then she does not have to reply.

It is Ian’s turn next. Six minutes later.

_You’ve got three, really angry rich kids over here._

She looks at the text. He is warning her. He’s letting her know.

But when Aneesa says something snide about Maura’s brain, or when Garrett makes a comment about the dresses she wears, and says something vulgar that he’d like to do to her, Ian will not come to her defense.

He will say something mild like, “is that really necessary?” And continue to eat his food.

Steve Sanner came to Jane’s defense.

Even if he didn’t know about her relationship with Maura. Even if he didn’t know she was questioning her sexuality. Even if they had been on a _date_.

He stood up for her, against people who had already bullied and degraded him.

Ian hadn’t done it. He wouldn’t do it.  
Maura hadn’t done that.

Could she?

How is she not like Garrett and the Adams twins? What does Barry see in _her_ that he doesn’t see in Ian? She doesn’t know.

She texts Ian back.

_I could not care in the slightest._

It is very suddenly the truth.

..

And so, the carefully constructed reputation that cost Maura her relationship with Jane, and earned her parent’s love and respect…It crumbles in the last two weeks of school.

The Adams twins stop hanging out with her.

Garrett – though it takes him a bit longer to get the message – eventually asks her outright, if she wants to be his girlfriend. And Maura, with her new found sense of clarity and desire to tell only the God’s honest truth, says, “No. I don’t want you anywhere near me.”

And he calls her a stuck up bitch, and tells her that he had to think of other girls to get hard for her, and he slouches off down the hall.

And he’s talking up a freshman at lunch.

Maura doesn’t expect that Ian will seek her out. She certainly doesn’t expect that he will make eye contact with her, or text her, or slip her a note that says he is proud of her for doing what he could not. But she also didn’t expect his rejection to hurt as much as it does.

She grabs him by the arm, on Monday of the last week of school.

He’s walking into the building alone, late like she is, and she grabs him around the arm to hold him back.  

He turns around, and she looks at him. And it’s all right there on his face.

“This does not hurt as much as being like them does,” she says. “You could do this too, Ian.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. And with a little shake of his shaggy head, he pulls his arm from her hand and hurries into the school.

Aneesa Adams gets a D on her final in AP Biology, thereby making Maura the Valedictorian for the year.

The teacher tells her in front of all the other students that she was astounded. She’d expected Aneesa to do better. Especially because she and Maura were neck and neck going into the test, and Maura didn’t find it challenging, earning a perfect 100, just like in all of her other AP classes.

Maura goes up to her Biology teacher at the end of the lesson, a woman named Gwenn Michaels whom she respects very deeply, and she says, “Ms. Michaels, I’ve been doing Aneesa Adams homework since the beginning of the second semester.”

Ms. Michaels stares at her. If she is surprised, then the decade worth of teaching she has under her belt will not let her show it.

“That’s serious, Maura,” is all she says.

“I know,” Maura says. “And if you need to punish me, by taking away Valedictorian, or with Summer school, or anything like that…I will understand. I won’t argue.”

Ms. Michael raises an eyebrow at her. “I’ve noticed, that you haven’t been spending as much time with your usual group of friends. That includes Ms. Adams.”

“Yes ma’am,” Maura says. “But this isn’t revenge. I don’t want you to think this is that. I know it could be interpreted that way…but it isn’t.”

There is something in Ms. Michaels’ face, that Jane would be able to explain to Maura, if she could tell the brunette about it. On her own, Maura cannot decipher it.

“Sit down, Miss Isles,” her teacher says.

Maura obeys.

For a while, they just sit there in silence. Maura’s palms are sweating. This is the moment she is expelled. Her parents will be so disgraced. They might have to move.

“Do you know where I live?” Ms. Michaels asks.

“N-no, ma’am,” Maura says, stunned by the turn in the conversation.

“I live in Downtown Crossing. Right off the T.” she says. “Do you know the color of the lines I have to take in order to get to the school?”

Maura blinks. “Yes, ma’am. I do,” she says slowly. “You would have to take the orange. And then the red.”

Ms. Michaels nods. “And sometimes on the weekends, I like to go running on Mission Hill.”

“Yes ma’am?” Maura is still lost.

“What line do I have to take, if I just want to run on Mission Hill, and not all the way there and back, Miss Isles?”

“Uh…the green line, ma’am? That would get you close?”

Ms. Michaels smiles at her. “You’re right,” she says. “I could, and do, take the green line out to Mission Hill, most weekends.”

They sit in silence once more until Maura’s curiosity gets the better of her.

“Um, Ms. Michaels? Why are you-?”

“How do you know the answers to those questions, Maura?”

The answer is right there, on the tip of her tongue. It is as though she has been waiting for the question.

She understands. She understands _everything_.

This woman has seen her with Jane.

“I used to ride those lines,” she says quietly. “When I was with my girlfriend.”

Ms. Michaels nods. “Yes.” She takes a breath. “Maura, I cannot promise you that you won’t fail Biology for what you have just revealed to me about you and Ms. Adams.”

Maura nods, although those words out of her teacher’s mouth make her feel like vomiting.

“But, I can tell you that I have had Ms. Adams in my class for 7 out of the 12 years that she has been at this school, and I did not believe that she was believe that she was completing her Biology homework on her own.

“I don’t believe you acted just now out of revenge,” Ms. Michaels continues. “And because I don’t believe that anyone else in your life will tell you this, I will.”

Maura gapes.

“You have done a very brave and admirable thing. The path that you chose three weeks ago is the right one, even if that girl does not come back to you.”

Maura doesn’t realize that she’s crying until a tear drips down her cheek, and Ms. Michaels hands her a tissue, and looks away.

“We may need to have a follow-up conversation about you and Ms. Adams,” she says crisply.

Maura nods.

She stands, understanding that this is a dismissal, but she stops at the door, turning. “I want you to know that this has been my favorite class this year. I didn’t help Aneesa cheat because I don’t respect you…or because I found your class to be disappointing. It actually made me think about becoming a doctor.”

Ms. Michaels does not look up from the test that she has begun to grade, but a smile tugs the corners of her mouth. “Thank you, Miss Isles, that means a great deal to me.” she says mildly. “My wife happens to be a doctor. I’m sure she’d be able to talk to you about the pros and cons, if it’s something you’d like to pursue.”

……

……

Maura does not have to lie to her parents about the reason she is not giving the Valedictorian speech at her graduation ceremony, because they are not in attendance. They have gone on to Rome ahead of her, leaving her with a first class ticket for the day after Graduation, and 2000 dollars in cash for traveling expenses.

As soon as her attendance at the ceremony is no longer mandatory, Maura excuses herself from the BB&N campus, and drives home.

There, she takes her travel money, as well as the monetary gifts from both sets of grandparents, and she puts it all into a bank envelope. After a quick check of the school directory against the address she’s entered into her phone, Maura drives to the Red Line station closest to her house, and takes the T into the city, changing once, onto the orange.

Though she recognizes the area in which she arrives as a less than savory part of town, Maura cannot help but be dismayed at the condition of Barry Frost’s apartment as she stands on the sidewalk looking up at it.

All of the windows have bars, and some are boarded up. The lobby – if it can be considered a lobby – does not require a key for entry, and Maura pulls the cracked, glass door open tentatively, looking around at the long rows of mailboxes, searching for the elevator.

There isn’t one.

She makes the climb to Frost’s 8th floor apartment, arriving in front of a door that says 823 out of breath and slightly sweaty.

She grips the envelope in her hand very tightly, and she knocks on the door before she can lose her nerve.

She can hear the television on inside, and she wonders what she will do if someone other than Jane answers. What if Barry answers, and doesn’t let her see Jane.

What if Jane is not at home?

Maura shifts nervously from foot to foot, and when waiting becomes almost unbearable, she knocks again.

“Okay, yeah, I’m coming!” a voice calls out from behind the door.

And Maura would know that voice anywhere.

Jane Rizzoli opens the door of Frost’s apartment, and there they are. Face to face for the first time in four months.

“Please don’t slam the door in my face,” Maura says, although Jane hasn’t made any movement at all.

“I don’t expect you to want to see me, but…I’m leaving for Rome tomorrow, and then, uh, and then I’m going to B.U. in the fall and…I just…Frost told me what happened.”

Jane’s face darkens, but when she speaks, her voice doesn’t hold the anger that Maura expects.

“Frost told me you didn’t know.” Her voice is raspy, like she’s been sick, and she’s skinny. She’s too skinny.

“What do you want, Maura?”

“Uh, I know that you hate charity, okay? I know that you’re proud and you want to do things on your own but…this is the money I got for Graduation,” she holds the envelope out in front of her. “And I don’t…I don’t need it.”

Jane doesn’t take it. She looks at the envelope, and then back up into Maura’s face.

“You think this makes up for-”

“No!” Maura cuts her off. “I know it doesn’t begin to make up for anything I’ve done. I know it feels like a bribe, and probably feels gross and like I’m just trying to get back into your good graces. But…” Maura takes a breath. “I know that you’re living here. And _that_ probably feels gross and horrible too, and…you deserve so much more than, than, than just couch boarding….is that right?”

Jane’s mouth twitches. “No,” she says. “It’s surfing.”

Maura nods. “So just…take it. And if you decide that you don’t want it, donate it. Or give it to Frost’s mom or something.” Maura swallows. She has promised herself that if she cries, she will just leave. Just turn and walk away, even if she hasn’t finished speaking.

“But I hope you’ll use it,” she says, forcing herself to look at Jane. “Because…you, because…You don’t deserve to be punished anymore for loving me than you already have been.”

She holds the envelope higher. And after ten of the longest seconds of Maura’s life, Jane takes it. She glances inside and she can’t help her shocked expression.

“Maura, this is a _lot_ of money,” she says.

“Yes,” Maura says, breathless. “10,500 dollars.”

“Jesus,” Jane says, only shock in her tone. “Did you graduate high school or medical school?”

Maura smiles. “High school first. Maybe medical school after that.”

“Yeah?” Jane is still looking downward. “You want to be a doctor now?”

“Yes,” Maura says. “I took some science classes this year that truly spoke to me. I’m not sure what kind yet, but I think I could be good at it.”

Jane’s eyes flick to her face, and then away again. “You are going to be good at whatever you choose, Maura,” Jane says gruffly.

Maura wants to hug her. She wants to twirl Jane’s long hair around her fingers like she used to.

“Thank you,” Jane says into the silence. “And I’ll…I’ll pay you back, okay? When I get on my feet, I’ll pay you back.”

Maura doesn’t say that she doesn’t want to see the money again. She nods, because she knows that it is more for Jane than for her.

“Okay,” she says, and then, because the brunette doesn’t answer, “That’s all I wanted to say to you. So, Good-bye, Jane.”

Jane looks up at her for the longest time yet, and there isn’t any hurt, or hate….or love, or excitement in her expression.

She just looks tired, and wrung out.

And life has already been very hard on her.

And Maura thinks that life has barely touched her at all.

“Bye, Mo,” Jane says. And she steps back and shuts the door softly.

…

Maura is boarding her plane the next morning to depart for Italy for three months, when her phone pings, just before she turns it off.

She has to do a double take, because the name on her screen is a name that she had resigned herself to never seeing pop up ever again.

**Jane**

_Fly safe._


	9. Nine

 

**_Saturday, June 16 th 2007, 4:56PM_ **

_To: Em Prentiss <_ [eep_a_spyder@gmail.com](mailto:eep_a_spyder@gmail.com) _>_

_From: Maura Isles <_ [MauraD_Isles@gmail.com](mailto:MauraD_Isles@gmail.com) _>_

_Dear Emily,_

_You see? I promised that I would keep in touch, and here I am, writing without even a reminder from you. Thank you for sending your flight information along for me, I tracked you all the way to Rome, just to make sure that you arrived safely._

_Mother and Father left about 20 minutes ago for the airport. I think they were relieved that I was not going with them this year. Now they can tell everyone that I’m pursuing a career in Boston, rather than making up excuses for why I’m not traveling with the handsome beau I should have by now._

_How is your mother? If you two are speaking this week, please give her my regards. She was always very civil to me when I saw her, even after she discovered our relationship. And speaking of relationships, how is yours going with that woman you met at the Academy? Her name escapes me right now, but I hope that you are still seeing her. She was good for you I think._

_Boston is sweltering. I’d forgotten the level of humidity that was possible on the East Coast. It’s a relief to be able to spend so much time in the Hospital, where there is air conditioning and order. Orientation was over on Friday, and we officially begin as Residents on Monday. I have barely been able to get any sleep. This is different than Medical School, or rotations, or anything that has come before. I am a real doctor, and my actions have the potential to directly impact another human’s life._

_I am feeling ill._

_Wish you were here,_

_M_

**_Sunday, June 17 th 2007, 3:16AM_ **

_To: Maura Isles <_ [MauraD_Isles@gmail.com](mailto:MauraD_Isles@gmail.com) _>_

_From: Em Prentiss <_ [eep_a_spyder@gmial.com](mailto:eep_a_spyder@gmial.com) _>_

_Maura,_

_You are officially a doctor now. Yes Residents are doctors, no arguing. In your professional medical opinion, is it possible for someone to cause permanent ocular damage due to eye-rolling?_

_Asking for a friend._

_The Ambassador and I are on speaking terms, and when I informed her that you sent your regards, she made her face into the thing she does that is not quite a smile, not quite a grimace, and said “ah, how kind.”_

_So…take that as you will._

_Italy is so fucking boring without you. I can’t remember what I did before you showed up, and no one here even compares to you on any level. No one comes close to beating me in Chess. No one can switch languages like you and I can, and there is definitely no one here as beautiful as you._

_So I can’t play, I can’t converse, and I can’t fuck. That about ticks all the ‘_ _to do_ _’ boxes on the Bored Ambassador’s Daughter list._

_But listen to me rambling on about my misery, when you are back in BOSTON, which is where you are meant to be! Any sightings of your one true love yet? How is the Residency going? I miss you like a fat kid misses cake, Maura Isles. _

_The first moment I am free, I will away to Boston, so that we can continue on with YOUR LIFE’S DESTINY ™_

_Yours Eternally,_

  1. _prentiss_



**_Sunday, June 17 th, 2007 8:30AM_ **

_To: Em Prentiss <_ [eep_a_spyder@gmail.com](mailto:eep_a_spyder@gmail.com) _>_

_From: Maura Isles <_ [MauraD_Isles@gmail.com](mailto:MauraD_Isles@gmail.com) _>_

_Do not be so flippant about those who struggle with their weight. Overeating is an addiction, just like gambling or drugs. And please stop calling it “my life’s destiny.” Jane and I have not been in contact for years. She has moved on, and so have I. I’m returning to Boston because the Residency is exemplary._

_M_

_Postscript: What are you doing up at 3:16AM?? If it is indulging in our favorite pastime – and without me, no less – then I shall never forgive you._

****

**_Sunday, June 17 th 2007, 10:16AM_ **

_To: Maura Isles <_ [MauraD_Isles@gmail.com](mailto:MauraD_Isles@gmail.com) _>_

_From: Em Prentiss <_ [eep_a_spyder@gmial.com](mailto:eep_a_spyder@gmial.com) _>_

_The fact that you assumed that I was talking about Jane Rizzoli only serves to prove my point, Dr. Genius. Do you remember any of the romantic comedies I subjected you to in Italy? _

_And no. Midnight scrabble is for you, and you alone._

_Yours,_

_e.p._

 

* * *

 

**_Wednesday, August 12 th, 2009 5:55PM_ **

_To: Em Prentiss <_ [eep_a_spyder@gmail.com](mailto:eep_a_spyder@gmail.com) _>_

_From: Maura Isles <_ [MauraD_Isles@gmail.com](mailto:MauraD_Isles@gmail.com) _>_

_Congratulations Agent Prentiss!_

_I just received the email you forwarded me! The FBI! I am overwhelmed. I have always known you to be talented, and smart, and completely deserving of anything you want in life. I am glad to see that this is now common knowledge._

_Emily, I know we haven’t seen much of each other in the last few years, but I still consider you one of my dearest, truest friends. I hope that you know how important to me you are, and how immensely, immensely proud of you I am._

_You are going to be an amazing FBI agent._

_All my love,_

_M_

**_Wednesday, August 12 th, 2009 6:15PM_ **

_To: Maura Isles <_ [MauraD_Isles@gmail.com](mailto:MauraD_Isles@gmail.com) _>_

_From: Em Prentiss <_ [eep_a_spyder@gmial.com](mailto:eep_a_spyder@gmial.com) _>_

_Maura,_

_God. That was so sappy. It’s just a job. Who cares that I’ve been working towards it since my 12 th birthday, despite overt obstructionist behavior from the Ambassador . _

_I mean, God, do I miss you so much that my teeth hurt? Yes._

_Am I close to tears since reading that email? Yes._

_Do I still consider you my best friend, and the woman who has never once judged me or the way I am? Without a doubt._

_But I would never admit all of that in an email, Maura, come on! Your mother is rolling over in her grave right now. (And she might not be dead, but she’s sure as hell dead to me after the way she’s been treating you)._

_The fact that I want to see you more than I want this job. The fact that I considered skipping my orientation so that I could drive to Boston to tell you how scared I am for said_ _orientation, those things are irrelevant._

_We are well bred, women of class. We would never dream of putting down in words how important the other one is in our life._

_Yours,_

_e.p._

**_Wednesday, August 12 th, 2009 11:57PM_ **

_To: Em Prentiss <_ [eep_a_spyder@gmail.com](mailto:eep_a_spyder@gmail.com) _>_

_From: Maura Isles <_ [MauraD_Isles@gmail.com](mailto:MauraD_Isles@gmail.com) _>_

_Begin forwarded message:_

_MAURA ISLES, your flight to Washington DC has been confirmed:_

_Departing Flight_

_Travel Time:_

_1h 36m_

_UA       United Airlines_

_Flight 1564_

_Aircraft: 753_

_BOEING 757 300 SERIES 178-224 STD SEATS_

_Nonstop | First Class_

_Baggage Fees | Visa & Passport Info _

_Thurs, August 13, 2009_

_Boston Logan, MA_

_BOS – 1:40 pm_

_Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport DCA - 03:13 pm_

_Thurs, August 13, 2009_

_Love,_

_Maura_

**_Thursday, August 13 th, 2009 2:24AM_ **

_To: Maura Isles <_ [MauraD_Isles@gmail.com](mailto:MauraD_Isles@gmail.com) _>_

_From: Em Prentiss <_ [eep_a_spyder@gmail.com](mailto:eep_a_spyder@gmial.com) _> _

_Maura,_

_I will at baggage claim with bells on._

_Emily_

* * *

 

**_Friday, September 14th, 2012, 3:37PM_ **

_To: Maura Isles <_ [MauraD_Isles@gmail.com](mailto:MauraD_Isles@gmail.com) _>_

_From: Nobody Too <_laurenisgone@gmail.com _> _

_Dr. Isles!_

_I can officially call you that, so do not wrinkle your nose. You have successfully (an understatement) completed your residency, and am more proud of you than I have ever been of anyone._

_Maura, I think it was a mistake to see you this past summer. To have you to myself for almost three full months. I am now having serious withdrawal symptoms. We either need to see each other on a regular basis, or we need to cut off contact altogether. (Since I am not there in front of you, I will clarify that the previous three sentences were in jest, although it is true that I do miss you more than I thought possible.)_

_Have you given any thought to you what your next move is? I should say, have you given any more thought to pursuing what is obviously your life’s calling? I mean, come on, Maura. You love surgery. You love pathology. You love forensics, and you have un incurable (though unwarranted) anxiety about your bedside manner. If that doesn’t scream Medical Examiner, I don’t know what does._

_And! Even better news! You could be a Medical Examiner for the FBI! We could work together. You could move to London, and we could drink fancy wine and talk about how my mother thought it was appropriate to put a personal ad in MY NAME in the paper._

_I’ve attached some of the more…aggressive text messages for your perusal. She didn’t even have the decency to post my preferred gender. Let me tell you, some of the male genitalia I’m receiving is truly worrying. Maybe I should forward them to you for you medical opinion…?_

_How is it going with Amy? I saw in the paper that Boston Proper is looking for a new ADA. Is she interested? I know she wasn’t happy about the move. How are you two deal with that?_

_Write back immediately._

_Yours_

_e. reynolds_

**_Saturday, September 15 h, 2012 10:32AM_ **

_To:_ _Nobody Too <_laurenisgone@gmail.com _> _

_From: Maura Isles, M.D. <_ [MauraD_Isles@gmail.com](mailto:MauraD_Isles@gmail.com) _>_

_I saw Jane’s brothers, Tommy and Frankie Rizzoli, as well as Barry Frost, yesterday._

**_Saturday, September 15th, 2012, 10:36AM_ **

_To: Maura Isles, M.D. <_ [MauraD_Isles@gmail.com](mailto:MauraD_Isles@gmail.com) _>_

_From: Nobody Too <_laurenisgone@gmail.com _>_

_Tell. Me. Everything._

_Do you need me to call?_

**_Saturday, September 15 h, 2012 11:22AM_ **

_To:_ _Nobody Too <_laurenisgone@gmail.com _>_

_From: Maura Isles, M.D. <_ [MauraD_Isles@gmail.com](mailto:MauraD_Isles@gmail.com) _>_

_It was the end of my rotation, and I was on call in the ER. We got a call that there were two ambulances on route, assault victim and the suspected assailant. In this case, I’m sure you know, the ambulances are escorted by the police, and when they pull up and jumped out, I recognized Barry Frost immediately._

_I don’t think he noticed me right away. The EMTs were pulling the victim from the first ambulance, and I was engrossed in helping him. He had a head wound, and was only vaguely responsive. It took me almost twenty minutes to notice that the man in the next bay was Jane’s youngest brother Tommy!_

_Tommy Rizzoli was the assailant, Emily!_

_I thought there must have been some mistake, but when I went out into the waiting area, Frankie was there, and he was talking to Frost. They both saw me as I walked over to them, and Frankie yelled out that he didn’t want me working on his brother._

_Frost said, “Chill, Frankie,” and then asked me what was going on._

_I told them that Tommy was stable, and that his wounds all seemed superficial, and he would most likely be discharged in a few hours. They asked be about the victim, but I couldn’t tell them._

_Frankie looked like he wanted to argue, but Frost didn’t let him. He thanked me for the information, and then told Frankie he was going to make a call._

_It wasn’t until I was back on the floor that I realized he was calling Jane. He was calling Jane to tell her that her brother had possibly beaten a man unconscious. I remember that she used to talk about how worried she was about him, about how her parent’s fighting affected him the most. I couldn’t help wondering what she’s like. I almost stayed past my shift to see if she would show up to see him. But he was cuffed to the bed by that point, and clearly incapacitated by some sort of drug, and I don’t believe I could have seen Jane for the first time in so long under those circumstances._

_Oh, God, Emily. Am I a coward?_

_Amy left. She’s going back to the West Coast._

_I can’t say I blame her._

**_Saturday, September 15 h, 2012 11:18AM_ **

_To: Maura Isles <_ [MauraD_Isles@gmail.com](mailto:MauraD_Isles@gmail.com) _>_

_From: Emily Prentiss <_E.EPrentiss@gmail.com _> _

_Begin forwarded message:_

_Ms. Prentiss, Thank you for reserving your priority flight to Boston. Below is your information. Please feel free to call us if anything does not meet with your approval. Thank you for using Direct Flight, Inc. Our best regards to the Ambassador._

_Departing Flight_

_Travel Time:_

_1h 14m_

_Direct Flight, Inc._

_Flight 21758_

_Gulfstream G650ER_

_You are booked for Sunday, September 16th,_

_Departure Time: 12:35AM_

_Your car will be arriving 1.5 hours before your scheduled departure time._

_Thank you again for choosing Direct Flight, Inc._

_I’ll be there. No need to pick me up. Text me your address._

_Emily_

* * *

 

 

Emily Prentiss appears at her apartment door at 3:30am Sunday morning. Maura has left the key under the mat for her, but she is not sleeping, and she pulls the door open on her best friend.

“Emily!” Maura finds herself pulled into the first real hug she’s had in months. She lets the wetness in her eyes seep into the other woman’s scarf. “I’ve missed you,” she says, when she is able to pull away.

Emily smiles her wry, secretive smile. “Always the theatrics,” she says, stepping to the apartment. “So I missed you too, don’t make it a thing.”

Maura smiles, following after her.

The coffee is already brewing, and Emily inhales deeply as she sits down at the kitchen table.

“You didn’t have to fly all the way here for me, you know,” Maura says. “And you definitely did not have to charter your own plane.”

“What’s a trust fund if you can’t use it to do the things that matter to you?” Emily says mildly, accepting the mug that Maura hands her. “And for the record, you are not a coward.”

Maura takes the seat opposite Emily, studying her friend closely. She looks tired, careworn, but not as completely beaten as she has been in the past.

“The BAU is treating you well,” she says.

Emily nods. “It’s…yes. It’s a change, from London, but it’s more than lived up to my fantasies.” Emily looks up at her. “When do you start your new job?”

Maura sighs. “It’s supposed to be three weeks from tomorrow.”

“And something has changed?”

“Yes!” Maura says incredulously. “Everything has changed.”

Emily just looks at her, waiting.

“I can’t go into forensic science,” she says, as though this should be obvious. “At least not in Boston.”

“Because you’ll see Frankie?”

“He’s probably already told his sister I work at BMC.”

“So?” Emily raises her eyebrows as Maura sputters. “What?” she asks. “First of all, you told me that Jane has probably moved on, so why should she care if you’re working at BMC. Second!” Emily raises her voice when Maura opens her mouth to speak. “Secondly, why shouldn’t you live here? _Work_ here? It’s not like she got the city in the divorce, Maura.”

Maura looks down into her coffee. “I wouldn’t want to see me,” she says after a moment. “The older I get, the more I can’t believe I…did those things. They seem like something,” she pauses, trying to gather her thoughts.

“They seem like something that a much younger, different person would have done,” Emily fills in. “Yeah, I know.”

Maura shakes her head. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” she says quietly. “Coming back here.”

“You were thinking that it was home,” Emily says. “There’s no shame in that.”

Maura sighs, taking a long sip of coffee. Emily is right, Boston has always been the place where she was picturing when she said the word home, regardless of where her mother was stationed at the time.

“Isn’t it time for a trademark joke about my destiny?” she asks weakly.

Emily doesn’t smile at her. “I don’t say those things to needle you, Maura,” she says gently. “I say them because I know that in some way, you think that there’s a possibility that it could happen to.”

Emily waits, and when Maura doesn’t answer, she laughs. “See? You can’t even find a way around it. Go ahead, try to lie. I think there are smelling salts in my bag.”

Maura smiles too, despite herself. “It’s so ridiculous, isn’t it?”

Emily shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe not.”

The two of them had slept together for all three of the years that Maura had vacationed with in Rome, until Maura had been confronted by her parents, and the truth had banished her back to the United States.

Sleeping with Emily Prentiss was worlds better than sleeping with any of the other men or women she’d been with before, and while she _loved_ Emily with all of her heart, while she would go to her when she called, no matter the time or place, she knew that they weren’t _in love._

Emily looks at her watch. “It’s 4:15,” she says, but I’m sure it’s midnight somewhere.”

Maura smiles widely, standing. “The chess board is through here,” she says. “I’m rusty, no one in the ER is even close to our level.”

Emily rolls her eyes, but she is silent until ten full moves into the game.

“Hey, Maura?” she asks softly, sacrificing her castle in a move that Maura would not have expected.

“Mmm?”

“You want that Associate Medical Examiner job, then you take it. You deserve it as much as Jane deserves what she wants.”

Maura picks up her knight, blinks away her tears in time to see the trap, and sets it back down.

“Okay,” she says, taking one of Emily’s pawns instead, hoping to lure her.

“And Maura,” Emily says, eyes glued to the board, darting around in scenarios, playing out her options.

“Mmm?”

“When you find someone you love, when they play as good as we do, and you fall in love with that person…Don’t tell them that midnight chess is our thing, okay?”

She grins when Maura looks up at her. “Give them everything,” She says. “Promise.”

Emily takes the bait, she pushes up the queen’s left knight, and Maura grins. She takes it on the next move.

“I promise.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	10. Ten

Maura sees Jane Rizzoli for the first time in over ten years, at her fifth crime scene.

She is the Assistant Medical Director for Milton proper, a town outside of Boston, and as she and the two techs she’s brought with her pull up to the scene, she can tell immediately that they are about to encounter something out of the ordinary.

“Woah,” one of her techs says. “That’s a lot of cops.”

It’s true, if not very eloquently stated, Maura thinks. There are at least two dozen officers on site, as well as three ambulances and at least six police cars blocking traffic.

“Call back to the morgue,” Maura says to the tech in the front seat, whose name always escapes her. “Tell them we’ll most likely need another two CSI techs. This looks like multiple bodies.”

“Cool!” The tech in the back, Jodi, Maura thinks. She watches in the rearview mirror as the young woman pulls out her cell to call back to the morgue. “This is my first Multi!”

Maura sighs. At least they are not squeamish.

They get out of the van, and begin unloading amidst the noise and bustle of the officers. The doctor did not anticipate loving crime scenes as much as she does. She finds them to be the perfect mix of interesting and grotesque, and there is something about that combination that appeals to her.

The officer designated to greet them at the scene hustles over, looking a little harassed.

“Good morning, Dr. Isles,” he says, with his eyes on Jodi as she unloads their tools. “It’s a big one today. Dedham’s gonna be pissed it technically falls in your jurisdiction.”

Maura waits until the man can pry his eyes off of Jodi’s backside to look at her. He blushes when he sees that he’s been caught.

“How many?” she asks.

“Uh, Five,” he answers. “D.I.C says you should start over there.” He points towards a sheet covered body nearby.

Maura nods, and heads towards it, glancing at the Ambulances, both with their doors wide open. “Were any of our officers injured?” she asks. It would explain the amount of police presence, although no one around her seems to be very upset.

“Oh,” the officer glances at the ambulance too. “Not seriously. It was a sting. A drug bust,” he clarifies, seeing her confusion. “The detective undercover got grazed, and another one hurt his foot or something.”

“So cool,” Jodi says.

“Amazingly cool,” the other tech echoes.

Maura cannot help herself. “Bodies are not ‘cool,’” she says, kneeling down by the first body.

“Says the woman who spends hours chopping them up.”

Maura has to admit that this is a valid point. “Touché,” she says, lifting the sheet carefully, “However, I would say that it is the pursuit of justice that I find…cool. Not the actual dead bodies themselves.”

They are halfway through evidence collection on the second body, when there is a bark of laughter from the back of the ambulance behind them.

Maura can’t say what makes her turn away from her work. There is just something about it that pulls at something in her brain.

She turns and glances at the open back of the ambulance, and feels as though there is suddenly not enough air.

 

It’s Jane.  
Maura stares at her as she jumps from the ambulance, one arm held to her body in a sling. She is dressed in a pair of torn and dirty jeans, a grungy white t-shirt, and a bright blue windbreaker with the words DEA on the back.

She waves away the EMT who tries to help her down.

“Go check on Crowe,” she says with a smirk. “I think his baby toe is really giving him some trouble.”

“It’s BROKEN, you monster!” comes an agitated male voice from behind her.

And there is that laugh again, rough, and deep.

“See something you like?” Jodi murmurs from across the body.

The tech next to her snickers.

Maura turns back around, her face flushing crimson.

“That’s Rizzoli,” Jodi continues. “This is her sting.”

“Maura glances back over her shoulder. Jane is facing away from her, talking to a man in a suit. Her hair is long, down to almost the middle of her back.

“You should put your eyes back in your head,” the tech next to her advises, snapping a lid on on a sample. “She’s gonna catch you looking at her.”

Maura drops her eyes quickly. “It’s just I-” She breaks off, thinking that she was about to possibly out a woman at her job. “She’s…”

“Hot as balls,” Jodi says. “Yeah. And to make matters worse, she swings this way too.”

“Hot as…” Maura trails off as the rest of the sentence percolates. At least this bit of slang is one she understand. “S-she does?”

“Yeah. She was hooking up with Mel’s roommate for a couple months.” Jodi indicates the tech next to Maura. Melissa. Thank God, Maura thinks. She is well beyond the stage where it is appropriate to ask their names.

Melissa nods, looking wistful for a minute before shaking herself. “If you’re going down that road, Doc, don’t think you’ll be getting anything more than a hook up. Probably a hook up for the record books, but…” She shrugs, and the three of them stand as one.

Maura follows them back to the van, feeling a twinge of regret for writing them off as gossipy idiots. She will have to listen to them more carefully from now on.

Maura helps Melissa load their containers into the van. “W-what do you mean?” she asks finally. “About – um – hooking up?”

The tech –Melissa – hoots her a look. “Lori, that’s my roommate, she says the detective doesn’t _do_ feelings. They hooked up for like…two months before she went undercover. Mel was over at her place like…every night, and she must have been getting it good, because she didn’t yell at me about dirty dishes once the entire time.”

Jodi murmurs something low, under her breath, and Melissa glances at her and then back at Maura.

“You know what I mean by...hooking up, don’t you?”

“Sexual intercourse,” Maura says automatically.

Melissa rolls her eyes. “Yeah. Well, they only did it at our place a couple times, but from what I heard, Detective Rizzoli has a definite fallback if her career doesn’t work out.”

It takes Maura a moment to understand this, but when she does, she feels her cheeks get hot all over again.

Jodi catches Melissa by the arm as they are heading to the fourth body. “You owe me 50,” she says under her breath. “I _told_ you Dr. Isles was one of us.”

Melissa glances at Maura, who tries to busy herself with switching out her gloves.

“Fuck,” she replies, moving off. “Well more power to ya. Why are all the hot ones so inaccessible?”

 

Maura takes several deep breaths, trying to process the sudden overflow of information.

She’d known there was a possibility of seeing Jane at some point, but when she pictured it in her head, it was always by chance in a grocery store, or…bumping into each other on the street.

 

She looks back one last time before heading to the last body of the day. She has heard Jane several times while she and the techs worked, and now she can’t leave without just one more look.

She turns, seeking out the bright blue jacket, the wild brown hair. She is met instead with brown eyes, widened in surprise and confusion.

Jane is staring back at her, clearly dumbstruck, mouth slightly open.

 

……

……

 

Maura gets home late. She’d stayed to make sure that her boss, a sharp featured doctor named Taylor, didn’t need any assistance.

“You’re going up for the Medial Examiner Job that’s opening up, aren’t you Maura?” Dr. Taylor asked at the end of the night.

Maura had nodded, hoping that her expression was hopeful rather than proud. She thought she might have been successful until she’d seen the look on the other doctor’s face.

“I was asked to put in my two cents on you,” she said. “That’s how I know.”

Maura had forced herself not to reply to this, and Dr. Taylor had smiled faintly, and handed Maura a folded piece of paper. “Here is what I wrote, verbatim, so that you are able to sleep until the decision comes down. Have a good night, Dr. Isles.”

And with that, she’d left the room, leaving Maura alone.

Now, Maura sits down at the dining room table and pulls the paper from her purse. She hadn’t been able to read it before leaving. And though she had pulled over twice on the way home to make an attempt, her hands had still been shaking far too much.

She takes a deep breath, and imagines the voice of Emily Prentiss, giving her usual blunt advice.

_Read that paper right now. You are better prepared when you know how the world around you perceives you._

“She’s right,” Maura says to the empty dining room.

“ _I’m right.”_

She unfolds the paper.

 

_Doctor Maura Isles is one of the most meticulous, detailed, and organized AME I have ever worked with. Though her interpersonal skills leave some to be desired, she is highly knowledgeable in all appropriate fields, as well as in many that at first glance seem to have no relevance._

_She would lead well, if a bit awkwardly, and would not let the personalities of those around her influence her work in the slightest._

_Please take all of this into consideration when naming a new Medical Examiner for the city of Boston._

_Monica Taylor, MD_

 

She is still sitting in the same spot, almost an hour later, when she hears her phone buzz across the room in the pocket of her suit jacket.

Maura looks down at the paper, still flat on her table, the writing of her boss and mentor still has uniform and legible as ever.

She sighs, and stands to retrieve her phone as it buzzes again, expecting to see the results to a tox screen, or a news report being pushed through by one of her applications.

Instead, there is a text from a number that she doesn’t recognize.

 

**_Hey Doc, there’s a party at the Robber. FYI, everyone’s going to be there._ **

Maura stares at the words as though they are written in a different language. She knows that there is a celebration in honor of Jane making homicide tonight, at the bar called the Dirty Robber, but she has no idea who would invite her.

 

As if reading her mind, the phone buzzes again with a second text.

 

**_Mel says there’s no way you have us in your phone. This is Jodi BTW._ **

Maura feels dual waves of relief and disappointment, followed immediately by annoyance.

She doesn’t like being analyzed by others, especially without her knowledge, and the fact that Melissa and Jodi have discussed who is and is not in her phone makes her feel exposed.

What else have they been saying about her?

_Probably that my interpersonal skills leave some to be desired_ , she thinks to herself, and then immediately, and answer occurs to her, as though there is someone else in the room, debating with her.

_Then you should go to the party. Prove them wrong._

Maura shakes her head. Jane is at the party. Jane is the _star_ of the party. There is no way.

_Then live with how you are perceived_ , the voice inside her head says, quite reasonably.

Maura blows out a long breath. She can’t do that either.

If her ultimate goal is to one day become the Chief Medical Examiner, then she has to be both highly intelligent and reasonably personable.

“So I’ll go to the party,” she says out loud. “I’ll go, and talk to some people, and then I’ll come home.”

Maura is almost about to head back out to her car, when she catches sight of herself in the mirror in the front hall.

“But first” she says, turning around. “I’ll change.”

……

……

She is overdressed.

That’s the first thing she notices when she walks through the doors of the Dirty Robber almost 45 minutes later. She is overdressed, _and_ it is possible that she will not see Jane Rizzoli here after all. The bar is packed full of people. Maura looks from face to face apprehensively. There are a couple of people she knows by their faces, though she’d be hard pressed to come up with their names, but most of the men and women who move past her are strangers.

What had Melissa called her that afternoon? Inaccessible?

Could that possibly be true?

“Hey! Dr. Isles!”

Maura turns to see Jodi wading towards her, two drinks in her hand. She is dressed in tight jeans and a tank top, her hair is down and she’s wearing more make-up than usual. Maura wonders if she looks as different out of context as Jodi does.

“I didn’t think you’d come!” she says, holding up the glasses of wine. “Pick your poison,” she says. “Red or white?”

Maura takes the white wine with a small smile. “Hello Jodi,” she says, and then, realizing this might seem formal, “Thank you for inviting me tonight.”

Jodi raises her eyebrows. “No problem,” she says. “I thought you might like to get out.”

There is something more to her words, something like innuendo, but Maura decides not to linger on it.

She takes a sip of her wine and scans the crowd. She catches sight of Jane at the bar, not looking her direction. She is talking to a man that Maura recognizes with a jolt as her brother Frankie. As she watches, Mel and a woman who must be her roommate approach them, and the roommate puts her hand on Jane’s arm.

The hug that Jane gives her when she turns and recognizes her is definitely not the one that was expected.

Maura sees Melissa smirk at her roommate as Jane turns to continue her conversation with her brother. “I told you so,” Melissa mouths.

“Um, Dr. Isles?” Jodi. Jodi has been talking to her this whole time.

Maura focuses her attention back on the tech in front of her and smiles. “You can call me Maura, I think,” she says. “When we’re not in a professional setting.”

An emotion flits across Jodi’s face as she smiles. “Yeah? Okay…um, Maura. I was just saying that you look really great tonight.”

Maura looks down at herself dubiously. “Thank you,” she says. “Though I feel I overdressed. I didn’t think it would be so casual.”

Jodi shakes her head. “No. You look amazing.”

Maura smiles. She has definitely misjudged this woman. “Thank you. And you look lovely as well. You should definitely wear your hair down more often.”

Jodi flushes, beaming at her.

“Do you want to sit?” she asks, sounding eager.

“That sounds nice,” Maura says, and she follows Jodi to a booth, sliding in across from her, signaling at a circling waiter that she’d like another wine.

 

It takes exactly 23 minutes for Maura to realize that Jodi thinks that they are going to have sex. Or, if she doesn’t think they will get that far, then she at least thinks that the future might hold that promise.

It happens when they are talking about Maura’s possible promotion to Medical Examiner in Boston, and how – if that were to happen – Jodi would not technically be working underneath her anymore.

She blushes so hard when she says the word “underneath” that there can be no misinterpreting the double entendre.

Maura’s spirits sink, just a little bit. She takes a sip from her third glass of wine and glances around the room.

Jane is looking at her from a bar stool. Her dark eyes unreadable from such a distance.

She feels Jodi’s fingers brush her forearm and turns back.

“Excuse me?”

Jodi looks up into her face. “I really hope you get the job,” she says with a little smile.

For a moment, Maura allows herself to picture a fling with one of her techs. Other M.E.s have been known to do it, and Jodi is neither bad looking nor is she dumb.

In the bar, dressed like she is, and on her third wine, Maura can almost, _almost_ forget about how awkward it might be afterwards.

She can almost forget that Melissa will find out, and then then roommate, and then certainly every other tech within a forty mile radius.

And what would they say about her then.

_Oh, Dr. Isles? Yeah, she’s highly intelligent, but sexual intercourse with her leaves a bit to be desired._

Maura stands abruptly, and Jodi pulls back from her, startled.

“I’m sorry,” Maura says quickly. “I have…to got to the ladies room.”

Jodi looks crestfallen. Maur…Dr. Isles. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that-”

“No,” Maura cuts her off, more harshly than she means to. “No,” she tries again. “You didn’t do anything inappropriate, I should…I just have to go to the restroom. I’ll be back in a moment.”

And grabbing her purse, Maura turns and follows the long hall to the bathroom.

…

She pushes into the room quickly, leaning back against the door once it closes, and she is so flustered and confused, that for a moment, she doesn’t realize that there’s someone else in the bathroom with her.

And then she looks up, and sees that Jane Rizzoli’s reflection is washing her hands in the mirror over the sink.

So. One horrible situation for another.

Maura has not decided whether to slip out unnoticed or dash into a stall, when suddenly, Jane looks up from the sink, and their eyes meet in the mirror.

Jane blinks at her, face completely impassive, and then she looks back down.

“Hey, Maura.”

“Jane,” Maura can’t look away. She wants to memorize every new feature of the woman that Jane has become.

“Congratulations,” she clears her throat. “That sting took a lot of dangerous people off the streets.”

Jane straightens from the sink and runs a hand through her hair. “Good,” she says mildly. “Thirteen months undercover should result in something besides me learning eight hundred different ways to eat Ramen noodles.”

Maura smiles. “You’ll be just as effective in Homicide,” she says, which makes Jane look catch her eye in their reflections again.

She is taller, broader, rougher maybe, but exactly the same in the eyes. Maura searches them for a hint of how she might feel about this meeting, but she sees nothing, not even her own interest reflected back at her.

“Fingers crossed,” Jane says quietly. “Fingers crossed.” She drops her eyes, so Maura does too. They are silent for a long moment. Maura is just about to take the hint and walk away, when Jane makes a noise. She is looking at her shoulder in the mirror, where a bright red spot of blood has blossomed on the bandage.

“You’ve bled through your bandage!” Maura says, alarmed.

“Thanks Dr. Obvious,” Jane says, and Maura would be stung if the words weren’t accompanied with a grin.

Maura takes a tentative step forward. “Would you like me to look at it?”

This makes Jane turn and face her. “What?”

It is Maura’s turn to smirk. “I am a doctor,” she reminds Jane.

“For dead people,” Jane says immediately.

Maura raises her eyebrows. “One’s anatomy doesn’t change just because they die.”

Jane looks at her for a moment longer, and then shakes her head, turning away.

“I’m fine,” she says, beginning to inspect herself again.

“Did you receive stitches?” Maura steps forward again. She forces herself to see only Jane’s injury, to treat her like any patient at all.

“No,” Jane says shortly. “I’m fine.”

Maura frowns. “They didn’t stitch it when you arrived at the hospital? That is certainly not standard practice. You’re bleeding freely.”

“Yeah, Well,” Jane presses two fingers to the middle of her bandage, and though her jaw tightens, she doesn’t make a noise. “I didn’t go to the hospital.”

“What?” Maura closes the distance between them, and takes Jane’s injured arm in her hands. “You were _shot_. You think that doesn’t require medical attention.

Jane goes to yank her arm back, but it seems to cause her more pain than she has a tolerance for .

“Jesus! Fuck, ow, Maura. Let me go.”

“No,” Maura says firmly. “Hold still while I look at this.”

She frees one hand from Jane’s arm to reach into her purse and pull out her travel medical kit.

“I’m going to remove the bandage, and look at it,” she says, falling into the habit of explaining herself that they’d drummed into her in medical school. “I think I have some temporary glue in here that will at least hold you over until you go to the hospital.”

She spaces the last four words out, emphasizing them.

Jane, however, is looking at her purse. “What are you like, Dr. Poppins or something?”

Maura looks at her blankly. “That’s a reference?”

“Yeah. Like…Mary Poppins? The Disney Movie? She had a carpet bag that was bottomless- you know what?” Jane looks away. “Never mind.”

“I am not familiar with that film,” Maura says. Also, this bag is Burberry. I can’t believe you would mistake it for a…bag made of carpet.”

Jane’s eyes go comically wide. She looks at Maura for a long, sputtering second, and then she bursts into laughter.

The sound is beautiful, and not just a little bit sexy. “Can I trust you not to bolt while I wash my hands?” she asks.

Jane’s eyes flick to her face, and then away as her smile fades. She doesn’t answer.

Maura sighs. “It will hurt a lot less if you let me treat it,” she says softly.

“Fine,” Jane says after a long pause. “Not like I can go back out there with blood all over anyway.”

Maura smiles, relieved and terrified. “Hardly,” she agrees.

They are silent while Maura washes her hands, and sets out the few supplies in her travel kit. She is working on removing the bandage around Jane’s upper arm when she speaks again.

“You were there,” She says quietly.

Maura doesn’t take her eyes off her work. “I was…”

“You were at my sting,” Jane clarifies. “At the crime scene.”

“Ah,” Maura nods, smiling tentatively. “Yes, I was. I’m the Assistant Medical Examiner.”  

“AME?” It is hard to tell from her tone whether Jane is impressed or surprised. “Where? Dedham?”

“Milton,” Maura says. “You were right on the border between the two.”

Jane nods, watching her work. “That’s Taylor, right? She’s really good,” she says. “I mean. She’s almost as good as Shields. I’m pissed she’s retiring.”

Maura presses an alcohol swab to the cut in Jane’s arm, holding tighter when the other woman yelps and tries to pull away.

“Hold still!” she orders.

“OW! Some warning, _Doctor??”_ They look at each other for the first time since Maura started patching Jane up, and their noses are maybe six inches away from each other.

“I’m sorry.” Maura is the first to drop eye contact.

Jane blinks several times. “It’s fine. _I’m_ Sorry. I…was undercover for a long time.”

Maura isn’t sure how this explanation fits, but she nods anyway.

“I just…feel like so much happened while I was pretending to be a Meth-head. The party’s great but…”

She trails off as Maura presses the new bandage tightly to Jane’s arm and begins to wrap it around.

She looks up when she is done to see that Jane is staring at her.  Her gaze is so intense that for a long moment, Maura forgets where she is.

It is probably only ten seconds that they stand there, looking at each other, but Maura feels like it’s hours, perhaps even a full rotation of the earth.

Jane opens her mouth like she’s about to say something, her gaze falling downwards to look at Maura’s lips…

And then the door to the restroom bursts open, and a gaggle of policewomen burst in, all talking over each other.

In that moment, Jane pulls away from Maura’s grasp, stepping through the hoard of women like they are no more than mist, and disappears from the bathroom.

Maura hurriedly collects her things and struggles out after her, but she is only in time to see Jane push out the front door and stride away down the street.

Maura watches her until she is out of sight.

Jane doesn’t look back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know...when this fic was still being planned, I told my friend: "Octopus, I am not going to let any chapter go over 2000 words."  
> To which, I imagine, Octopus gave a great big guffaw, and then replied solemnly "mmmokay. We'll see." 
> 
> The moral of this story is that I.  
> am not  
> shit. 
> 
> Please enjoy this supersized chapter.  
> 2 more to go. 
> 
> (And an epilogue. Why am I like this)


End file.
